Original Sin and...

[_madeleine]

Madeline,
And by intrinsic in the quote from me you employed, I mean no common set or condition of what is always right, and what is always wrong inherent in being human. And as some beings are amoral, intrinsic may not be the best term... Societies by definition do have some kind of a common set.

OK.

But individuals in a culture may have variations on the cultural norms.

Sub cultures! Oh, and all cultures have violators of the norms, a.k.a. "deviants".

[_subgenius]

Right.... Because the original topic was about....?

Oh yeah. Adam, and original sin. How was god and Christianity not included?

viewtopic.php?p=705410#p705410
there is where i thanked you for the derail. The Atonement and Adam are hardly congruous with morality in Poylnesia. But hey, i guess you can always rely on the "its the celestial forum" life raft. But my original response to your derail was one of criticism, not proposition.

If some subset of a population lacks a trait or characteristic is that trait intrinsic? At what point does it fail to be intrinsic? Is all of humanity equiped with a sense of morality?

answers in order:
1. depends 2. when it is not naturally belonging to all subsets 3. yes

Yes I am arguing exception, as you are using terms that are all inclusive.

but that does not negate the rule. For example...remember the discussion about the hungry bread thief....the rule was that stealing is bad...the hungry man clearly stole....except...the circumstances dictated the punishment....the bad behavior still occurred, the exception being the consequence. The only way that one could consider the stealing to not be bad is to consider stealing as not being good or bad in and of itself, but rather shift that moral to the motivation behind the action...or...that stealing had not truly occurred at all....perhaps in this circumstance it could be termed "self oriented charity"?

If you had said the normal condition for humans is to be moral, then we would not be having this discussion.

that is what the word "intrinsic" means.

If you had said that morality seems to be a flexible set of rules, norms, and mores common to a culture, society, or sub group, instead of universal and transcendent.... We would not be having this discussion.

no, i still mean that it is transcendent, and i gave examples of how human behavior and human feelings are transcendent and thus moral systems founded on those feelings and behaviors are transcendent as well.
flexible? nope....varied due to environmental influences? yep

I am taking exception to terms you are employing to set the timbre of the discussion.

kinda awkward changing canoes in mid-stream ain't it?

[_SteelHead]

No one is changing canoes. I have been consistent. That you like to mischaracterize other's arguments is no new thing.

Transcendent is unprovable, but as you defined it, that there are significant variation in what is good in bad across humanity would seem to counter your claim . Universal is demonstrably false. Intrinsic, depends on your definition of amoral.

Back to Adam and the fall then?

Adam in the garden was amoral (an exception to universal morality, and morality seems not to be part of his condition in the garden, hence not intrinsic). How did he sin again?

[_subgenius]

No one is changing canoes. I have been consistent. That you like to mischaracterize other's arguments is no new thing.

Transcendent is unprovable, but as you defined it, that there are significant variation in what is good in bad across humanity would seem to counter your claim . Universal is demonstrably false. Intrinsic, depends on your definition of amoral.

so, we are just going to wait for your response on the previously "bumped" posts?.....that is ok with me

Back to Adam and the fall then?

Adam in the garden was amoral (an exception to universal morality, and morality seems not to be part of his condition in the garden, hence not intrinsic). How did he sin again?

Interesting point, especilly in the light of 1 Tim 2:14
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

but

Genesis 2:16-17 and Genesis 3:3 makes it pretty clear
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

So Adam clearly transgressed...sinned by disobeying a commandment from God....this is further reinforced by Adam (and Eve, and mankind) suffering the consequence of that transgression.
So, what influence did the atonement provide for this transgression....seemingly a conditional pardon, agree?

[_Bazooka]

Nevertheless, if we consider any stealing to be "bad", regardless of circumstance then it is intrinsic and the hungry, in fact did do something "bad"....this is without argument and cannot be considered "good"....feeding the hungry is good...but stealing is bad...i am ok with that approach...the "motivation" and the circumstances do not make the act of stealing good or bad...they merely influence the consequence.
So, the hungry man did something "bad", but that alone does not merit the same punishment as the greedy man who stole bread....this is why i mention the difference between murder and manslaughter....killing is still bad in all those examples.

Is killing ever good?

killing cows and killing green beans is really not killing

Putting herbicide aside, why is killing cows not really killing?

for human(s) to kill human(s) is always bad.

Agreed.
Which makes it all the more puzzling as to why the killing of Laban by Nephi is held up as a good thing to have happened.
Perhaps God doesn't recognise that morality is universally intrinsic....

[_Bazooka]

So Adam clearly transgressed...sinned by disobeying a commandment from God....this is further reinforced by Adam (and Eve, and mankind) suffering the consequence of that transgression.

Not strictly true.

Some people believe Adam and Eve committed a serious sin when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, latter-day scriptures help us understand that their Fall was a necessary step in the plan of life and a great blessing to all of us. Because of the Fall, we are blessed with physical bodies, the right to choose between good and evil, and the opportunity to gain eternal life. None of these privileges would have been ours had Adam and Eve remained in the garden.

http://www.LDS.org/manual/gospel-princi ... e?lang=eng

How can it be a transgression...sin...in the eyes of God when it was EXACTLY what God wanted to happen?
How can the phrase "suffering the consequences" be consistent with the phrase "None of these privileges"?
It seems you want to say we suffered as a result of the Fall, yet the Church portrays it as gaining privileges.

[_Themis]

Nice of you to provide an example of a play/movie of someone disregarding a moral code in order to not go hungry. Maybe you should also watch the movie Alive. Situational ethics is all about disregarding moral codes, and in many cases because of mortal risk. A good book/tv series with lots of examples of situational ethics is Game of Thrones.

yes, comparing Victor Hugo to Game of Thrones...how astute.

at this point it is apparent that you do not understand the topic. Your statement about situational ethics disregarding moral codes is correct in as much as Joseph Fletcher noted it...he was speaking particular to Christianity, and that this setting aside was only when the ultimate moral code was being preferred...this being Love. The "system" then sets forth its own morality, founded on that transcendent emotion/action of Love.
So, while you obviously missed the Victor Hugo reference of Javere being a legalist, or someone that adheres to the strict Christian Law (legalist) and how it is reconciled by the new Christian moral of Love.
Seriously, your posts display a cursory understanding of these concepts. Fletcher developed situational ethics with only "one" moral...a moral that he considered divine in nature, intrinsic to mankind, and universal.
ftw - again

You certainly lack understanding. Maybe another example which shows that yes people can disregard moral codes in order to survive. People will steal food from other people in order to survive even though they know it will mean the other person will die of starvation. This is a scenario unfortunately all to common in human history when food resources are scarce, and happens even today.

[_Themis]

There is not fault, just talking past each other.

My contention the whole time has been that there are no intrinsic morals, but that all societies have morals.

Oh, OK. :)

Sub made the claim of intrinsic morals. So it is incumbent upon him to prove so. You seem to be supporting his assertion, but to claim that alp societies have morals does not translate into thou shalt not kill, thou shaking not steal, and thou shalt not commit adultery. As all 3 are perfectly and demonstrably acceptable in a variety of societies.

It's all in the language we use, I think, which even in anthropology has to be clearly defined, since "adultery" has western connotations. Applied to non-western cultures it can be construed that one speaking of adultery=one man, one woman, married where sexual relationship(s) with others outside of this is "adultery". But in the context of anthropology, it means sexual behavior that creates the emotion of "horror" in the individuals of a particular culture. There are as many different "horrors" as there are cultures, but the underlying thing is, that there is "horror" at all. That is what a Catholic theologian would call "natural law", and what Darwin would call evolved behavior (or emotion?) for the benefit of the species.

*whew*

I told subby you two were just talking past each other. You bring up three areas(stealing, killing, and sex) where every group is going to have to have rules in order to better their chances of working together for survival. As you have already said the rules can vary from group to group. Some rules say with killing other humans , a group may have particular rules within the group, and very different rules about killing members of another group. Same with sex and stealing. Vikings may be a good example. I do think the word intrinsic morals about these three areas could be applicable, but they are easily explained from natural reasons, and as everyone but subby seems to understand, they vary greatly from group to group.

[_Themis]

Agreed.
Which makes it all the more puzzling as to why the killing of Laban by Nephi is held up as a good thing to have happened.
Perhaps God doesn't recognise that morality is universally intrinsic....

Did vikings consider killing humans from other groups when they were pillaging and plundering bad or good? I like your example. The Bible itself provides even more examples.

[_madeleine]

Oh, OK. :)

I told subby you two were just talking past each other. You bring up three areas(stealing, killing, and sex) where every group is going to have to have rules in order to better their chances of working together for survival. As you have already said the rules can vary from group to group. Some rules say with killing other humans , a group may have particular rules within the group, and very different rules about killing members of another group. Same with sex and stealing. Vikings may be a good example. I do think the word intrinsic morals about these three areas could be applicable, but they are easily explained from natural reasons, and as everyone but subby seems to understand, they vary greatly from group to group.

Thanks. :-)