Love that question and the Joseph Campbell tie-in! Thank you for provoking much thought.
I think Campbell makes an excellent point - Christianity did indeed overturn ancient polytheistic morality.
I’d prefer we treat our enemies with some level of decency. This is difficult if your enemies are terrorists who do the opposite, to incite others to follow suit. But I think it is important to hold this line as much as possible. We collectively make the world we live in. We should try to make it a decent one with decent rules, one we actually want to live in. Human rights and all that. Maybe that is idealistic and naive, but if there isn’t a critical mass trying, there is only the ugly alternative…and such brutality is particularly ugly with powerful modern technology
So far as it applies to the modern world tho, I think Nietzsche was right too - God is dead to so many because science has bested so much dogma. If you don’t really believe, that morality isn’t particularly meaningful except from social pressures. Nationalist impulses overwhelm spiritual ones. Without checks on power and elite accountability to law, such morality is out the window in matters of war and elite abuses as far as I can tell.
Well said! I really appreciate that line that we collectively make the world we live in... I suppose the only thing we truly have in our control is ourselves so that's the best place to start.
How we treat our enemies, each other, or even ourselves, is interesting to ponder. That being said, look at how we treat our pets for the answer. Some choose not to have pets. Some choose to have too many. How, in every case, the pets are cared for reveals the character of the individual.
Modern philosophers have created an earth whereby the thinking females of child-bearing age might well ask themselves, "Do I want to bring a child into the world already ruined by Intellectuals trying 'fix the planet' while inadvertently making it unfit for Humans?" The modern intellectuals guiding us wake up in new world every day. So, how does one identify one's "enemies?"
Love that question and the Joseph Campbell tie-in! Thank you for provoking much thought.
I think Campbell makes an excellent point - Christianity did indeed overturn ancient polytheistic morality.
I’d prefer we treat our enemies with some level of decency. This is difficult if your enemies are terrorists who do the opposite, to incite others to follow suit. But I think it is important to hold this line as much as possible. We collectively make the world we live in. We should try to make it a decent one with decent rules, one we actually want to live in. Human rights and all that. Maybe that is idealistic and naive, but if there isn’t a critical mass trying, there is only the ugly alternative…and such brutality is particularly ugly with powerful modern technology
So far as it applies to the modern world tho, I think Nietzsche was right too - God is dead to so many because science has bested so much dogma. If you don’t really believe, that morality isn’t particularly meaningful except from social pressures. Nationalist impulses overwhelm spiritual ones. Without checks on power and elite accountability to law, such morality is out the window in matters of war and elite abuses as far as I can tell.
Thanks again!
Well said! I really appreciate that line that we collectively make the world we live in... I suppose the only thing we truly have in our control is ourselves so that's the best place to start.
By the way, I remember a love affair between Helen and Paris where they lived happily every after. Such romantic writing.
That would have been nice... I mean poor Menelaus - but it's not like it was originally a love marriage...
How we treat our enemies, each other, or even ourselves, is interesting to ponder. That being said, look at how we treat our pets for the answer. Some choose not to have pets. Some choose to have too many. How, in every case, the pets are cared for reveals the character of the individual.
Larry Bjork
Yes, I think you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals...
Modern philosophers have created an earth whereby the thinking females of child-bearing age might well ask themselves, "Do I want to bring a child into the world already ruined by Intellectuals trying 'fix the planet' while inadvertently making it unfit for Humans?" The modern intellectuals guiding us wake up in new world every day. So, how does one identify one's "enemies?"