For better People

Last week I told you I had been confronted with a dilemma about how I should choose my actions. and why i ought to choose the so called 'right' one.I’m still not sure whether this is the most rational “law” but this is the best answer I have come up with.

The odds that an immoral action in a certain situation will truly benefit you are usually very slim, and it’s almost impossible to be in a situation in which the immoral action will only bring you happiness. So, the best choice is to act according moral laws, and I believe that Kant’s categorical imperative is the very best one ("Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.").

You might ask yourself how will bring you happiness. Well it may not but it won't harm you either. If you hurt someone that person will most likely hurt you back, or he’ll become a worse person because of what you did to her and therefore ‘spread’ that lack of morality throughout the world, which means that you will someday be a victim of “immorality” too (which will be a consequence of your evil action).

But just as your lack of morality can be spread, so can your morals. And I’m sure about that, as I can see that my good actions had a big impact on the way my people around me have come to start thinking.

Even if there’s a possibility that a bad action will bring you happiness that chance is most likely very small, and if it doesn’t seem like it, it’s most probably because you aren’t seeing things through and aren’t therefore realizing how it’ll come back to bite you.

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The universal law

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In my previous post (Crime and Punishment) I talked about how I thought forgiveness should apply to those who regret their acts. In this post I’ll talk about morality and rational actions, and relate it to Crime and Punishment.

When I was thinking about regret, I thought that “good” was nothing more that rationality and “evil” or "bad deeds" were unconscious actions. Now, how did I come to this conclusion?

Suppose you do something bad that you later regret, not because the outcome was bad for you, but because you realize what you did was wrong. Firstly, you must notice how a person is always walking towards truth, meaning, that when your personality changes, it is replaced by one that it is more correct than the previous one was. For example: you once were a kid who thought it was ok to steal pencils. Now you know that stealing pencils is wrong. You are closer from the truth, the objectively correct set of values than you were as a little kid. Now you may say that some people change for the worst. Well that is correct, but they are yet more correct then they were before changing. If a good person becomes a murderer for some reason, they won’t be further from the truth, because a person who becomes a murderer can only become so if he/she doesn’t truly know how wrong it is, if they did, they would never have become one.

The way I began to judge my actions as moral or imoral was by trying to think as someone outside the action. That way I would weight my actions and their consequences on society, instead of thinking on what the outcome would be for me. Let me explain this better with an example:

John wants Susan’s pencil. Stealing it would only bring happiness to John, however Susan would lose something she likes. Richard, who doesn’t know any of them, and therefore won’t gain/lose anything from John’s action, thinks John should not steal the pencil. In this example I am John but I try to consider my actions as if I were Richard . This means you should act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law, Kant.

Notice that this is the correct and most rational way of living, God must forgive everyone, because if they did bad deeds it was because they did not know how wrong they were. It is not their fault as they just had limited knowledge about morality. This, however, doesn’t matter much right now for he doesn't actually exist (think of the concept of God as karma).My view on the way I should live has changed a bit though. What does Susan matter to me, and whybshouldn't I having in mind I will be much happier by stealing from her? After all, I am myself, I want to live my life the best way possible, I must reach happiness.

Imagine that I had the chance to steal everyone’s money and run to some other foreign country where I will live happily forever. Why shouldn’t I do it? Well I must be honest, I only have one answer but I’m not too sure about it. All my actions must be actions that I wouldn ’t mind being the target of. This brings Kant's categorical imperative again "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.".

This categorical imperative, the central philosophical concept in Kant’s moral philosophy. I agree that this is the true rule that separates moral from imoral actions. If everyone followed this idea society would be perfect. That is, if everyone was intelligent enough to know what should become a universal law and what shouldn’t. We can easily relate this to what I formerly stated, as moral actions, according to the categorical imperative, are the actions that are better for the society as a whole. However I'm now trying to say that my actions might change the actions of those around me.

This means that if I do something bad others might do so too, but if I do something good, those around me might take my actions as an example and be good aswell. It’s like I and those around me had some kind of agreement: as long as none of us does anything bad, we will be all good to each other. Yet almost no one is like this, and I might be the only one being good, but maybe, if I am a good person, society might become moral too. Just think about this as moral selfishness. However, this doesn’t really apply to a situation which I will only benefit from.

I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else even if I did only gain happiness, though I think the rational action would be hurting the other person and become happy myself.

Well, now you know my big dilemma. I’ll post the second part of this post in about one week, I hope that by then I'll already have an answer!

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Freedom!

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I’ve thinking on what you ought to be allowed to do in today’s society very much lately and have come to the conclusion that there is really not an answer, it all comes down to your ability to foresee and evaluate coming events and the amount of responsibility for your actions you can take. Truth be told , there is a very simple, obvious way that even though it is a bit utopian is the one people consider as the correct one;

It very much allows you to do whatever you want within a range of actions that doesn’t affect other people in a harmful manner. Why should you be kept from doing what you want, and what is the difference between buying whichever shirt you want or smoking marijuana?

Factually there is none.

However the likeliness of people veering from a simple amoral action to a harmful chain of events is very much different from one another. In case you haven’t noticed all events have an implied line defining how reasonable they are which is passed on from generation to generation while being constantly modified by social standings, the media and those closest to you.

Whist taking drugs may be considered less appropriate than choosing your outfits, being a shopaholic may be a bigger problem than taking the occasional smoke, but then again, there is bigger chance you will become an addict than a shopaholic...

Law set boundaries we must abide to have been set up to keep foolish and insensible people from hurting themselves and society as a whole, just think about people who smoke, knowing full well that is highly damaging to their health eventually expecting some treatment for some tobacco related disease when it comes, which it will...

The existence of these people is unavoidable; therefore there must be limitations to our freedoms until we have a better legislation or a more decent society.So, please help tomorrow´s society be a little bit more suitable for better people.

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Crime and punishment

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“Regret is a negative conscious and emotional reaction to personal past acts and behaviors. Regret is often felt when someone feels sadness, shame, embarrassment, depression, annoyance or guilt after committing an action or actions that the person later wishes that he or she had not done” - wikipedia

There are things that I’ve done in my past that I fully regret. When I think about them now, I cannot understand how unconscious I was and how much I’ve grown, for I would never do such things today.

Now, I suppose I’m not the only person in the world that feels like thisObviously this is pretty common, so usual that odds are that whoever is reading this knows the feeling.

I remember being in bed when I understood the following: he who regrets a certain action, cannot be punished for it. You might think this is pretty silly, but it is not. Just think about it. Remember when you were a kid and you used to mock your friends? And now you regret it, because you are now a more conscientious person? Well, if you do regret this, then you know you would never do it again for you now know how wrong it is – you are no longer the same person. I, for instance, regret some of my past deeds, and I would never do them again, because I now know how stupid and wrong they were. And I don’t mean wrong because the outcome was bad for me, but because I they were bad for some else, they were bad in an outsider’s objective point of view.

Now I hope you agree with what I said. When you regret something, you are no longer the same person. This means that you should not be punished for the actions you regret. It is like putting you in jail because when you 5 you stole your sister’s pencil. You were not conscientious enough to know that what you were doing was wrong.

This, however, cannot be applied to our society in any way. It’s almost impossible for a judge to know whether a murderer regrets his actions, therefore, it is difficult to change the law of a country bearing this idea in mind, so let’s discuss that another day. Although it might be hard to change the law, it can change the way you live! If you know someone who you can’t forgive for something he/she did, rethink about it, does he/she truly regret it? If so, why won’t you forgive that person since he’s no longer the same person who did it?!
I also noticed, less importantly though, that if god did exist, he would forgive those who regret their conduct. Unlike human judges, god would know how you really feel like about the offence, which means he ought to forgive you, as you were unaware of the result of your actions. Therefore forgiveness also loses some of its mean, as it stops being something hard and ‘beautiful’ and becomes something simply rational.

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The bible, God's book

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Here’s a very simple point about the bible most people don’t understand or have never been told and that I thought I’d share with you; The following reasoning will only concern the good book’s validity, as it is the only one that I am knowledgeable about, even though it may apply to other ‘works of fiction’.

The Bible’s legitimacy as a divine book must have two very solid bases; firstly it’s original legality as the actual word of God and the fact that it must have maintained its reliability throughout the centuries.

The theological explanation to the Bible being the word of God is that those who wrote it were, at that moment, inspired by the Holy Spirit, therefore writing the word of God, even though they may or may not have made mistakes as there may have been ‘comprehensible’ flaws back when the Prophets were being inspired, due to their imperfect human condition.

Well, the inspiration part is a bit iffy, or if you already are an atheist, just plain nonsense, why would a divine creature give its subjects its doctrine in a doubtful way, with ‘mistakes’ and in a language that is anything but clear, allowing dozens of different interpretations?

Assuming there is only one way to praise God and that there is only one correct doctrine (otherwise there would no right one and therefore no need for prayers and rituals and so on, as most of them would necessarily be wrong) and that God knows the past present and future, why would he want to be incorrectly praised for centuries? And no, God doesn’t work in mysterious ways…….

The part that concerns its reliability after hundreds of different versions and translations is, I think, rather clear:

The bible has obviously been utterly modified throughout times, it was translated countless times and many of the Hebrew terms lost their subtle meanings, and that was just the involuntary change…..

The Codex contains two extra books in the New Testament. One is the little-known Shepherd of Hermas, written in Rome in the 2nd Century - the other, the Epistle of Barnabas. This goes out of its way to claim that it was the Jews, not the Romans, who killed Jesus, and is full of anti-Semitic kindling ready to be lit. "His blood be upon us," Barnabas has the Jews cry.
The Codex - and other early manuscripts - omit some mentions of ascension of Jesus into heaven, and key references to the Resurrection,
Other differences concern how Jesus behaved. In one passage of the Codex, Jesus is said to be "angry" as he healed a leper, whereas the modern text records him as healing with "compassion".
Also missing is the story of the woman taken in adultery and about to be stoned - until Jesus rebuked the Pharisees inviting anyone without sin to cast the first stone.
Nor are there words of forgiveness from the cross. Jesus does not say "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".

Clear enough?......

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Proof that God doesn’t exist !-Part II

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Because I have been criticized on my last post for supposedly not giving any formal argument as you’d expect in a philosophical thesis, giving only contradicting evidence of what Jesus is thought to have taught us, I decided I would answer the questions raised on the comments of the last post (the first one on how God doesn't exist).

The atheist belief is based on the implausibility of the existence of God as a divine entity;

-God’s existence is based solely on faith, as you cannot in any circumstance objectively point out an act of God. The truth is that miracles are the explanation of the dim-witted, which has be proven countless times so far (Noah’s arch, Adam and Eve,…..and so on)

-Faith consists in believing in something without proof. Well, this has been the biggest conversation stopper I’ve encountered so far, keeping me from reaching a conclusion whenever someone pulls the faith card.

Therefore:

-There is no proof that God exists!

Now that we have flawlessly reached this conclusion, I shall carry on with my line of thought.

I, of course, cannot establish or conclude that God doesn’t exist, because a negative cannot be proven! Very much like you cannot prove not to be guilty of a crime and cannot prove that mythological creatures (like dragons, unicorns and so on) didn’t exist, even though there also are testimonies affirming they did.

Now, compare God, a creature that is above all things, wasn’t born and has always and will always exist, is all-powerful, omnipresent,all-knowing and still cares about mankind among the trillions of planets and probably civilizations in the universe to dragons, some species that may have existed and been somewhat exaggerated….

Well, I’ll acknowledge that they both seem unlikely but no one has started wars, destroyed civilizations or planned their lives according to testimonies about dragons….