Re: 2004 Presidential Election.
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Jack Simth said:
Bearing in mind, that this is a question of ethics, and as such is fundamentally unarguable on several levels, here is a roundabout and incomplete attempt at one:
Let's start with something else. Something that the supermajority...
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Argumentum ad populum. logical fallacy.
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Jack Simth said:
...of people believe is wrong: Murder. Murder is illeagal. ...
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No, murder is a wrongful killing. By definition, murder is wrong. Sorry to argue semantics, but that is the correct definition.
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Jack Simth said:
...It is also called wrong in the Bible. ...
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Relevance?
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Jack Simth said:
... Obviously, murder is a religious issue, ...
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No, actually, it is not.
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Jack Simth said:
and the state has no right to intervene. Perhaps it is an ethical issue, instead. With ethics, things ultimately lie on fundamental, unproveable assumptions ...
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Not so. Ethics makes very few assumptions. The assumptions made in ethics usually pass the reasonable person test, that is, thigns a sane person would agree to.
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Jack Simth said:
...(some samples: with Kant's "pure logic", one must first assume: 1) that logic is applicable to ethics, 2) that "better" is something to be strived for, and 3) Kant's definition of what has intrinsic value; with self-interest or extended self-interest ethics, one must first assume that personal consequences matter in questions of ethics [not a given in all schools of ethics]; "feels good" ethics usually assume that it either doesn't matter anyway or that nature/God/whatever has provided the ultimate guide when producing your feelings (or that it is an evolutionary process, and if your ethics are flawed, they are supposed to cause you problems), or some variant; with God centered ethics, even assuming that the existence of God and every event statement in the Bible is wholly accurate in every detail, one first needs to assume that the created ethically ought to obey the rules laid out by the Creator; et cetera; et cetera), which are religion-like in nature. Murder penalties are therefore unconstitutional, and thus the state has no right to interfere on that basis.
You can replace "murder" in the above with virtually anything that's illeagal (with minor tweaks to the rest of the text), really - (in no particular order) rape, incest, theft, drug abuse, tax evasion, kiddie porn, gay marriage, or prostitution, to name a few. The above is complete bull, of course. But how can the case be argued that it IS bull? More specifically, can you debunk the above for murder, rape, incest, theft, kiddie porn, et cetera without also debunking the above your favorite issue: gay marriage, especially considering that it uses a good portion of the same basic approach that you used to say that gay marriage should be okay?
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This is crap dressed up as philosophical musings. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you misconstrue ethics completely.
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Jack Simth said:
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Will said:
And it must be remembered that marriage was co-opted into religion, and the current religious significance is just the incorporation of very old secular (or pagan, depending on your viewpoint) traditions.
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That is one hypothesis. It isn't proven, however.
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You're saying that one can equivocate murder with gay marriage. Equivocation is a logical fallacy.
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When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat. The two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
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