And upon what do you base the idea that you are right and they were wrong?
Christian Persecution vs Persecuted Christians
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And upon what do you base the idea that you are right and they were wrong?
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Upon the idea that the murder of children is evil and heinous. Look, if you and Danny are right, then Assad gassing his people and ISIS beheading Americans are both moral and justified. Both Assad and ISIS are states or heads of states and they make the laws and that is their morality. Since their laws and morals say it's okay to do what they do, those things must be both moral and justified, right?
No.
What is "legal" and what is "moral" are often two different things. Some laws have zero grounding in morality. Some are arguably against the society's prevailing moral beliefs.
Personally, I am Roman Catholic, and part of that is a belief that there is an objective moral position, and that it is of divine origin.
The thing I have to admit is that there are tens of thousands of other belief systems that have the exact same belief, but whose particulars of morality differ from mine.
...and that is before we even address those who don't believe in objective morality.
But to conflate that with a belief that I think Assad is morally justified is incorrect. I don't.
What I am telling you is that your position that laws merely codify morality is demonstrably false. What you call "murder"- the killing of your own children- has only been defined as such by a majority of human cultures for about 1% of human history.
If laws are only a codification of morality, then why did that change occur? And how? If morality is objective, it couldn't.
What is "legal" and what is "moral" are often two different things. Some laws have zero grounding in morality. Some are arguably against the society's prevailing moral beliefs.
Personally, I am Roman Catholic, and part of that is a belief that there is an objective moral position, and that it is of divine origin.
The thing I have to admit is that there are tens of thousands of other belief systems that have the exact same belief, but whose particulars of morality differ from mine.
...and that is before we even address those who don't believe in objective morality.
But to conflate that with a belief that I think Assad is morally justified is incorrect. I don't.
What I am telling you is that your position that laws merely codify morality is demonstrably false. What you call "murder"- the killing of your own children- has only been defined as such by a majority of human cultures for about 1% of human history.
If laws are only a codification of morality, then why did that change occur? And how? If morality is objective, it couldn't.
Ryujin
Legend
Some laws are even specifically codified to stop one group's idea of morality from being enforced over and above another group's idea of morality. I would say that the reason why Freedom of Religion is also frequently seen as Freedom FROM Religion, from a governmental standpoint, is specifically so issues of subjective morality aren't imposed upon those who have different views, when there is no greater societal reason for such enforcement. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (or, as more properly translated from the original source, "Thou Shalt Not Murder") carries obvious benefits to society as a whole. "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" carries no such societal benefit and, if proponents of the United States as a "Christian Nation" would admit, is the very sort of thing they object to when they decry the concept of Sharia Law.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You just said..
"Those are not murder by the predominant moral, religious & legal codes of the day, but rather justifiable homicides."
So morals depend on what the society says is moral. ISIS is a society. It creates laws. It governs. I maintains and builds infrastructure. Therefore, according to what you just said, those beheadings are moral.
The major faiths are very similar at the core, but differ around the edges. I understand that.
I didn't say you believed it. I said if your statement above is correct then he is morally justified. He has a society that also believes as he does or the gassing would not have happened.
You didn't show that, though. The Romans thought it moral to murder children and then the codified it into law. People don't say, "Hey, let's make a law that says X and then we can think it's moral." Rather, they say, "X is moral, so let's make a law that says so in order for there to be no misunderstanding."
The change occurred because the perception of what was moral changed and then they codified new laws to represent that. As for how, even if there is an objective morality, people are inherently flawed and won't always see it. So people can view things as moral when they aren't.
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Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
Er... No.
As these point out, it is more like a governing body. But a society it is not.
Althought it does present itself as a moral authority as well, so your point has some legs.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
so·ci·e·ty
səˈsīədē/
noun
1.
the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.
2.
an organization or club formed for a particular purpose or activity.
ISIS meets both of those definitions.
Nope. Syria acceded to the Geneva Protocol, including the Chemical Weapons Convention. These allow for the creation and stockpiling of chemical weapons, but not their use on civilian populations. Assad was breaking international law.
Assad was a head of state, and he broke international law - no haven for him on justification there. ISIS calls itself a state, but that has yet to be recognized by the world community, and it has broken international law and recognized laws of war in several (probably many) instances. Their grip on the title of "state" is therefore highly questionable.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
If it can sign up for it, it can leave it. Syria is a sovereign state and can decide what it does or does not follow. Other countries may decide that he isn't following THEIR morality, but that doesn't mean that he isn't following the morality of his society.
Recognition by the rest of the world doesn't matter. If the world decided not to recognize water as being wet, it would still be wet. The same goes for a state. Lack of recognition doesn't stop it from being a state. The world has no real right to impose it's laws on sovereign states.
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
The second one, but not the first. There is an aggregate of people living under ISIS's rule.
But whatever, focus trying to prove that ISIS is a society. What do I care.
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