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Exploring Morality

Hello Beachchick! Good to see you.

Thank you for the interesting contribution to the conversation.

I read a lot of material on the very subject you brought up while researching this. Intent vs. action is something I’ll be getting into heavily next time around. I’ll keep Mr. Kant in mind.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 4, 2011 @ 2:03 pm

Pocket,a brief history of the “Golden Rule”.

“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”-Ancient Babylon

“That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.”-Ancient Egypt

“Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.”- Ancient Greece

Religious forms:

Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill. – Buddhist

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. – Christianity

Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself -Confucianism

One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires – Hinduism

Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you -Islam

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. – Judaism

» Posted By ADONAI On March 4, 2011 @ 1:42 pm

Also, I didn’t intend to link morality and religion. As I said,I didn’t really have any point at all. I want people to draw their own conclusions. Not be led into a certain mode of thinking.

But for large tracks of human history, religion WAS the moral guidepost.

Before that, it was a shared sense of survival. Morality was not inherent or something mankind began with. Though, as I said, many scientists believe that our evolution since has hardwired certain “moral beliefs” into our brains. But this is all still very much being debated in academia. I do agree with them that the eventual formation of the emotion of “empathy” went A LONG WAYS toward turning homo-sapiens into moral creatures.

Of course you don’t have to be religious to be moral. But that doesn’t in any way minimize religion’s impact on “morality”.

Love the range of replies so far. Exactly what I hoped for. And I will cover a lot of the topics being discussed in the follow up, sometime next week.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 4, 2011 @ 1:33 pm

KevenSeven,

That’s right! You get a cookie!

» Posted By ADONAI On March 4, 2011 @ 1:21 pm

The View From Here: An Open Letter to President Obama

It’s a right leaning country. Particularly on social issues. And when politicians on either side get into it, especially Presidents, everyone gets pissed.

If it were a left leaning country, you would think at least a third of the states would allow same sex marriage. 6 states. And a Native American tribe. That’s not even a fourth. And all this “civil unions” bullshit …I mean, come on. Let these people get married. It’s fucking ridiculous.

What was the point of all that Civil Rights legislation we passed 40 years ago? Was that just for African-Americans? Should we keep calling it that since, obviously, not all citizens are treated equally.

And where is that argument at? Are these people American citizens? Yes. So, give me the Constitutional argument that leads to them having fewer rights than every other citizen. There isn’t one! If a church doesn’t want to marry them and they don’t take federal money, that’s fine. But they should have THE RIGHT to marry somewhere else like every other goddamn American!

There are 12 other states that have recently debated same sex marriage. And we need every one of them and then some. With a majority of states getting over themselves, we can almost completely avoid attempts at federal legislation to ban gay marriage. The numerous court rulings on the way will build a mountain of precedent that could withstand even a Supreme Court challenge in my opinion.

I wanna tie this all together with a witty closing statement but I can’t. So I’ll just end it abruptly.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 3, 2011 @ 4:55 pm

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 3, 2011 @ 2:02 pm

They Should Been (more than) Contenders!

That I could agree with. Lewis definitely turned in the best acting performance that year.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 2, 2011 @ 4:40 pm

Most years, my favorite movie of the year doesn’t get nominated.

First off, Goodfellas is such a great movie. I’ve seen it a hundred times and it never gets old. I still think Godfather is the best American mafia movie ever overall but Goodfellas is by far the best for pure entertainment value. The bits of levity and comedy are layered in so well. My favorite Scorsese movie is still The Color of Money.

Which brings me to one of my favorite nominees to not win Best Picture:

The Hustler. One of my all time favorite movies. I grew up with a pool hall right down the street and, though I never got very good, I always enjoyed the game. And if you were looking for something more exciting, someone was always ready to put money on the line. But not a lot of hustlers in a small town. I was accused of it a few times but it was never anything more than a brief encounter with incredible luck.

Anyways, Paul Newman is just so fantastic in it. But he’s fantastic in everything. He’s Paul fucking Newman. I still cringe during the scene with the breaking of the thumbs. It’s not graphic but you KNOW what they are doing and the sound is enough. It lost to West Side Story. WTF?!

But as I scanned the list of Best Picture winners over the years, I found myself saying that a lot. 1962 was kind of a toss up for me because I like Lawrence of Arabia,it’s a great film. A true classic. But To Kill a Mockingbird, in my opinion, was the best film made that year. And I really like Mutiny on the Bounty too.

Doctor Zhivago losing to The Sound of Music was kinda silly for me too. But I’m biased against musicals and I understand they use to be HUGE in this country. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is another one of my favorites. I love westerns. But the meta-insane tour de force that was Midnight Cowboy is hard to beat. Rocky beating Taxi Driver is debatable for me. I LOVE Rocky.

Apocalypse Now should have beaten Kramer vs, Kramer. Apocalypse Now is better than good and greater than the best. Kramer vs. Kramer is an hour and a half of Dustin Hoffman yelling at Meryl Streep with ten minutes of a kid looking sad padded around it. I didn’t wanna get into this one because I haven’t seen The Last Emperor, but it can’t be as good as Broadcast News.

Shakespeare in Love beating out Saving Private Ryan is one of the great travesties in the history of the Oscars. I will say no more. 2000 is another toss up year for me. Gladiator was an awesome action flick and a pretty damn good movie. But so was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That’s a tough one for me. Chicago beating Gangs of New York is another WTF?! moment for me. Does the Academy hate Scorsese?

2007 is another toss up year. No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are both equally awesome.

I haven’t seen How Green Was My Valley, but Citizen Kane was fucking boring. I still don’t get the fascination with that Orson Welles stroke-fest.

» Posted By ADONAI On March 2, 2011 @ 4:31 pm

Race to the Bottom

Artist, I think it has a ton to do with entrenched power and nepotism.

The people at the very top NEVER want to leave that position even though the “nature of the market” dictates that everyone eventually will.

So they change the nature of the market or circumvent it entirely. Create “empires” littered with yes men, random family, and “favored” friends. Subtle manipulation of over decades to constantly “game the system”. Bury any reason under a pile of “lawyer talk” and opaque corporate bureaucracy.

But the people have to take some responsibility. It’s so easy to “buy Washington” when we keep electing their politicians over and over again. So easy to skirt the law when the people are clamoring for their goods and services without any question of how they get this shit.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 8:10 pm

KT, I love his material from the 80’s. Just taking all the silly things from everyday life and riffing on them in hilarious ways. “Stuff” is still one of my favorite all time bits of his.

And I agree on both the loss of his wife and the drug use. Truly an amazing man who had experienced life to the fullest. The ups and the downs.

We should all be so lucky to live. Not just exist.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 7:59 pm

Yes and yes.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 7:07 pm

david, 2 choices is the reason why he didn’t vote.

Move past the Party thing. He wouldn’t have voted PERIOD with a gun to is head.

Believe me when I tell you that he saw no difference in Republicans or Democrats because, as he said, they are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 4:41 pm

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING RICH!

If wealth and material possessions are what makes you happy, who am I to judge?(until you die. then you’re going to Hell)

What pisses Mr. Carlin off and so many like myself is that many are not satisfied with that. They can’t just have more, others must have less.

You don’t HAVE to sacrifice your humanity to have the life you want. Many successful companies treat their employees like human fucking beings and they still do just fine.

But you don’t have a right to it. You don’t “deserve” to be rich. No one does. And I see stories of rich people who, through a series of bad investments, are now inching toward the poorhouse. And sometimes I feel bad for them. Because many of them didn’t hurt anyone to get their money but they took a gamble and it didn’t pay off. That is tough luck.

But if you’re being led out of large building in handcuffs I got no sympathy for you. Look at where you “work”! You make more than any of us will ever see! And that wasn’t enough?! What were you going to do with it?! Make yachts out of cocaine?! Unfortunately, these kind of people fair much better than the assholes I mentioned before.(WHAT!?! They’re still assholes.)

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 4:32 pm

KT,Indeed. One of the better rants from his “Angry Years”.

The knowledge of a man who has lived a long life and seen a lot of fucked up shit.

I first became aware of him in the mid 90’s when he was transitioning from crazy observational humor to more social commentary.

I remember thinking he was the first person on TV to say what I was thinking. This shit is fucked up!

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 4:15 pm

david, you assume that Carlin was political at all. He hated the Democratic Party as much as the Republican. He had no political affiliation and did not vote.

He simply hated the wealthy who run us down everyday and the stupid people who wanna be “just like’em!”.

If that automatically equates with Republican in your mind, then that’s on you. Not him.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 4:06 pm

KT, I did see his most recent interview.

I kept waiting for him to ask the guy for some cocaine.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 3:59 pm

I do love Charlie Sheen and the WWE though.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 3:18 pm

Barking up the wrong tree my friend.

No one forced people to go to his shows. His books weren’t mandatory reading.

He did not kill people for an extra profit. He did not hire slave labor to produce his comedy routines.

I think someone is just bitter about George Carlin.

*EDIT* and the “he’s just an entertainer” or”he’s just a comedian” thing doesn’t sit with me either.

I could say the same of Oscar Wilde or Samuel Clemens. People still took what they said to heart. They were still correct.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 3:10 pm

“But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never … ever … EVER be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. BECAUSE THE OWNERS, OF THIS COUNTRY, DON’T WANT THAT! I’m talking about the real owners now…the BIG owners! The Wealthy…the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice…you don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS!

They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. … They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying…lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that.

That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting FUCKED by a system that threw them overboard 30 FUCKING years ago. They don’t want that! You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork…And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this FUCKING place! Its a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in The big club. By the way, its the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people.

White collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means continue to elect these rich COOK SUCKERS who don’t give a FUCK about you. They don’t give a FUCK about you … they don’t give a FUCK about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. Its called the American Dream, cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”

~George Carlin

(sorry. He already said it so much better than I ever could have)

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 2:46 pm

The Crisis of Reality:Conclusions

KT, well said.

I think we see the “meaning” to it all everyday. Life is what you make of it.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 3:16 pm

If I don’t really exist, then doing this shouldn’t bother me at all.

…… OH GOD THAT HURT!!!! OH MAN, I WAS SO WRONG!! I TOTALLY EXIST!!!!! JESUS CHRIST, THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!!!……

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 2:16 pm

Guess the Oscars!

Indeed

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 2:09 pm

Still 100 times better than the “Social Network” and “Angry Dancer Can’t Find Time to Masturbate”.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 2:08 pm

Inception

Darren Aronofsky

James Franco

Christian Bale

Natalie Portman

Melissa Leo

My only question is, how did Mila Kunis not get nominated? She was just as good as Portman.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

Montana tea party on crack … or something

jdmn17, The Protestants were responsible for Prohibition.

One of the “religious right’s” many short lived victories.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 12:45 pm

An Ill-advised Rant on the Nature of Arguments

HA!

He was in charge of the military for almost a decade.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 28, 2011 @ 4:07 pm

In the World of the Blind, We’re Often Led Off the Cliff

squeezed, I would have definitely said “Fuck all ya’ll” by now. But I don’t think I would quit. Maybe. It’s a TOUGH job despite what many may think. But, yeah, definitely a “fuck you” to everyone. Let them know where I’m at.

And THAT is why I need your vote in 2016. Best. Press Conferences. Ever.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 3:36 pm

KT, that is fine. I think we agree on the outcome but have different opinions on how to get there. The Republicans have to be stopped on this. One way or another, it’s gotta get done.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 3:09 pm

david P., his hilarious talk show aside

The man was the ONLY person on MSNBC against the Iraq War and everything else Bush tried to push on us.

The ONLY man on TV pushing progressive counter ideas on a nightly basis. And they fired him for it.

I LOVED his MSNBC show. I watched it everyday. He is the guy who made me a progressive.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 2:45 pm

KT, The states have to win this battle. Not Obama. How does it go beyond a state issue? The federal government has NO grounds to interfere here or impose anything onto this debate.

So it is very much a state issue. The people HAVE to do this.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

» Posted By ADONAI On February 27, 2011 @ 2:41 pm