97 replies to this topic

[Habitat]

me-wonders, on 21 February 2012 - 08:38 PM, said:

I absolutely love what you have to say, and want to add to it, since 1958 we have prepared our young for a technological society with unknown values, and have dramatically different values from our past.  

We not only have corruption, but corporate cultures that ensure the greatest corruption.  That is how the banking system got into trouble.  Our bankers were doing things that were completely immoral and getting rewarded for it.  Those who said things were going very wrong, lost their careers.  We like to believe the moral problem is in the ghettos, but today the moral problem is in high places, and I am quite sure this the result of amoral education for technology, and leaving moral training to the church.  I think our nation is in big trouble, and that is why I enter these forums.  Material values have trumped human values and this is a cultural problem.

I think plenty of people who are old enough to have seen a lot of change in society would agree with you, I know I do. But those who are young don't know that, it is just the way the world is, to them.

[me-wonders]

Habitat, on 27 February 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

I think plenty of people who are old enough to have seen a lot of change in society would agree with you, I know I do. But those who are young don't know that, it is just the way the world is, to them.

This is true even in a history forum, where I expected people to have a greater awareness of the past.  It is a bit unnerving.  Some of these younger people know historical facts a lot better than I do, but they have no sense of meaning.  So in another thread people are arguing if teachers and police responded correctly to a 4 year old drawing a picture of a gun, and most the arguments are in favor of laws and acting on them, without any kind of human judgment.  As though it is okay for "authority" to be on paper, instead of within the human.  This is the mentality that lead to the horrors of what happened in Germany.  I can not think of words strong enough to express how horrifying this is to me.  I do not want to leave things like this.  I am on the internet hoping we can raise awareness and return to protecting our liberty.

[me-wonders]

libstaK, on 27 February 2012 - 05:52 AM, said:

Hey me wonders - so you were assertive in the true sense of taking a position that you could live with and retain your dignity and self respect in despite what others tried to tell you that you should value.  I am sure your children are very grateful and proud of having you as their role model now that they have faced the crudity of materialism and greed themselves - love and simple integrity is precious beyond words.

Thank you, but I am not sure things are that good in my family.  Actually I am blown away by what my grown son and daughter think, and I question if I ever tried to have meaningful discussions with them?  It seems like I was always waiting for them to be ready to have the discussions I wanted to have with them, and they went their ways, and those discussions never occurred.  It seems like my son and daughter avoid thinking about anything except their own limited self interest, and then the things they say floor me.  

They did return to the basic values I taught I them, but the only learning they are interested it, is learning that increases their pay checks.  I have a huge library of audio and video tapes about history, religion, psychology, the universe, math and so on, and they act like I am offering them poison when I try to share this information with them.  

  , but I care for a 2 year granddaughter, and a 4 year old great grandson, and I am hoping to interest them in learning, science and math.  My 4 year old great grandson, can do some simple math.  I don't think he is actually grasping the concepts, but he is memorizing correct responses, to 2 plus 2.  I love walking with them alone the river, and encouraging them to engage in nature.  I am afraid for them, because I see the competition for resources and education and jobs getting worse.  We don't have money, so the kids will have to be exceptional to qualify for grants.  Or society as a whole will need to do a turn around.  And this is why I am on the internet asking things such as what makes person good.

[Habitat]

Well, me-wonders, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The cultural setting we grow up in is immensely influential on what we are, to a greater or lesser degree we are all people of our times, particularly the formative years. With experience, we can see how things wax and wane over the decades or centuries, and hopefully become less victims of the cultural fashions we grew up with, but I can't say I'm much impressed by the current vogue. Just my pet theory, but the people running society today have largely never experienced real hardship, or been confronted by it in others on a daily basis, unlike their parents generation, and it engenders a less compassionate outlook, IMO. Second-hand tales from parents are much less influential than direct personal experience, in forming our world view, I'd say.

[me-wonders]

Habitat, on 28 February 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

Well, me-wonders, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The cultural setting we grow up in is immensely influential on what we are, to a greater or lesser degree we are all people of our times, particularly the formative years. With experience, we can see how things wax and wane over the decades or centuries, and hopefully become less victims of the cultural fashions we grew up with, but I can't say I'm much impressed by the current vogue. Just my pet theory, but the people running society today have largely never experienced real hardship, or been confronted by it in others on a daily basis, unlike their parents generation, and it engenders a less compassionate outlook, IMO. Second-hand tales from parents are much less influential than direct personal experience, in forming our world view, I'd say.

It is interesting to share this discussion with someone outside of the US.  I know the greatest force for culture is public education.  At one time that meant religion.  People just were not educated, but they attended church, and learned from one book, the bible.  Scholasticism was started by the church and used Greek and Roman classics to support the churches point of view, and prove the church is the authority on how the universe works.  Scholasticism relied heavily on Aristotle, and Aristotle was under the influence of the very controlling Spartans, and the disillusion of Athens, resulting from loosing the war with Sparta.  The war with Sparta resulting from Athenian exspansion, which was the result of the war with Persia.  Hum, that was a muddy as a river after spring rains.  

How do I save this?  Socrates was admonment on the necessity of awakening the conscience.  That is basically what religion is all about, but Socrates had a god of nature, not a god that comes from a holy book.  Everyone had gods and an unknown god.  Christianity begins with an unknown god and insists on making this a known god.  That leads to superstition instead of truth, and a supernatural god that rules by whim, and can be pleased or displeased, and who rewards or punishes us, depending on how he feels.  This is not a good thing.  The unknown god is what is behind, reason, is the controlling force of the universe.  Even the gods are subject to the force of the reason, the cause and effect.  We are speaking universal laws here.  We come to an understanding of universal laws by studying nature and human nature.  Moral, is to know the law, and good manners.  Socrates was admonment on the necessity of awakening the conscience.

[me-wonders]

me-wonders, on 07 March 2012 - 04:23 PM, said:

It is interesting to share this discussion with someone outside of the US.  I know the greatest force for culture is public education.  At one time that meant religion.  People just were not educated, but they attended church, and learned from one book, the bible.  Scholasticism was started by the church and used Greek and Roman classics to support the churches point of view, and prove the church is the authority on how the universe works.  Scholasticism relied heavily on Aristotle, and Aristotle was under the influence of the very controlling Spartans, and the disillusionment of Athenians, resulting from loosing the war with Sparta.  The war with Sparta resulting from Athenian expansion, which was the result of the war with Persia.  Hum, that was a muddy as a river after spring rains.  

How do I save this?  Socrates was intent on the necessity of awakening the conscience.  That is basically what religion is all about, but Socrates had a god of nature, not a god that comes from a holy book.  Everyone had gods and an unknown god.  Christianity begins with an unknown god and insists on making this a known god.  That leads to superstition instead of truth, and a supernatural god that rules by whim, and can be pleased or displeased, and who rewards or punishes us, depending on how he feels.  This is not a good thing.  The unknown god is what is behind, reason, is the controlling force of the universe.  Even the gods are subject to the force of the reason, the cause and effect.  We are speaking universal laws here.  We come to an understanding of universal laws by studying nature and human nature.  Moral, is to know the law, and good manners.  Socrates was intent on the necessity of awakening the conscience.

[Seeker79]

me-wonders, on 28 February 2012 - 04:50 AM, said:

Thank you, but I am not sure things are that good in my family.  Actually I am blown away by what my grown son and daughter think, and I question if I ever tried to have meaningful discussions with them?  It seems like I was always waiting for them to be ready to have the discussions I wanted to have with them, and they went their ways, and those discussions never occurred.  It seems like my son and daughter avoid thinking about anything except their own limited self interest, and then the things they say floor me.  

They did return to the basic values I taught I them, but the only learning they are interested it, is learning that increases their pay checks.  I have a huge library of audio and video tapes about history, religion, psychology, the universe, math and so on, and they act like I am offering them poison when I try to share this information with them.  

  , but I care for a 2 year granddaughter, and a 4 year old great grandson, and I am hoping to interest them in learning, science and math.  My 4 year old great grandson, can do some simple math.  I don't think he is actually grasping the concepts, but he is memorizing correct responses, to 2 plus 2.  I love walking with them alone the river, and encouraging them to engage in nature.  I am afraid for them, because I see the competition for resources and education and jobs getting worse.  We don't have money, so the kids will have to be exceptional to qualify for grants.  Or society as a whole will need to do a turn around.  And this is why I am on the internet asking things such as what makes person good.

You are doing the right thing. Engage them in nature as much as possible. Nature will teach.

[Pale]

Quote

For example:
A Christian might say it is God or Jesus that makes a person good. (A external force)

A Buddhist might argue it is detachment and compassion that make a person good. (internal control)

Socrates might argue, it is a person's conscience (coming out of knowledge) that makes the person good, and he worked endlessly to expand people's conscience by asking them questions.

A psychologist might argue, it is good parenting that makes a person good.

A sociologist might argue, it is culture that makes people good or bad.

A zoologist could argue, as social animals, we are genetically programmed to be good.

Many would, could, and do understand and accept all these answers/belief systems.

Edited by Pale, 13 March 2012 - 11:53 AM.

[ealdwita]

What makes a person good? In most cases it's having the ability (or luck) to avoid being caught doing something bad!

[me-wonders]

ealdwita, on 13 March 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

What makes a person good? In most cases it's having the ability (or luck) to avoid being caught doing something bad!

I can appreciate the humanness of your answer. God knows I am not proud of everything I have done.  Unfortunately I tend to remember these things, and this becomes a personal purgatories.  Perhaps some of us punish ourselves more than others?  

For sure, it isn't a wrong unless it hurts another or the earth.  Once the damage is done, it is done.  Sometimes we can undo the damage and sometimes we can not.  I know I would love to undo any damage I might have done, and end the ugly feeling of knowing I could have hurt another or the earth.  And then I get angry with God for not giving me all the information I needed to avoid doing wrong, in the first place.  

I am really in favor of Socrates and developing conscience.  However, in another forum a young man expressed displeasure with his mother for riding him about doing this homework, and a few days later announced he how miserable he felt as he faced an exam in two hours and was totally unprepared.  Sometimes we can know we are doing wrong, but the reality of that wrong doesn't register until it is too late.  

My four year old great grand son is saying he hates learning.  He has no understanding of what knowledge can do for his life.  How can we help the young come to understand the importance of things that seem unimportant to them?  This includes the importance of rules to avoid regrets.

[Paracelse]

I just reloaded the front page of UM and looked at the titles in the Forum section and I saw this which made me smile  I didn't want to hurt anyones feeling so please just smile with me if you think that was funny:

Quote

Philosophy and Psychology
  What makes a person good?
  Being Gay!
  The gossip

[me-wonders]

Paracelse, on 16 March 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

I just reloaded the front page of UM and looked at the titles in the Forum section and I saw this which made me smile  I didn't want to hurt anyones feeling so please just smile with me if you think that was funny:

You catching that is beautiful.  

[Elrico]

me-wonders, on 31 January 2012 - 11:57 PM, said:

It appears many Christians think people must become Christians and must be saved by Jesus to be moral and good people.  I find this belief rather offensive, and think we should talk about what makes a person good.

I dont't think i've ever heard a christian say that. Anyone can be a good person, regardless of religion. Also, MANY CHRISTIANS? I think you've been talking to the wrong group, friend.

[Blue Star]

Free will.

[me-wonders]

Blue Star, on 21 March 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

Free will.

That is an interesting reply.  Are you saying, because we have free will and other animals do not, that when we choose good we are good?

What about moments of temporary insanity resulting from too much stress?  Can a good person do bad things?  How do we draw a line between a willful act that should be punished, or a mistake resulting from poor information, or a moment of temporary insanity?