I have personally heard this claim from several Christian Fundamentalists. It usually doesn't survive examination. They were raised to the church, had a normal adolescent rebellion and denied everything to do with the authority structure they knew. Then as they matured they experienced the guided hallucination (revelation, dream, epiphany, psychotic…
But, before we get to that, a brief introduction: My name is Hank & I run a blog called Ethics Gradient (which, it should be noted, may - does - contain some coarse language. In my mind, it's all perfectly justified but I realise not everyone digs the sailor-talk). I also go by "Mandrellian" on various…
The following is a quote lifted from Charlie Stross's blog and is pretty much In Full. We. Are. Not. Going. To. Die. On. Wednesday. The maximum energy the particles generated by the LHC (7TeV) get up to is many orders of magnitude below the maximum energy of cosmic rays that…
For the past few years, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has successfully injected a huge does of psychology into the study of morality. Along the way, he has gone a long way toward bridging the “is” with the “ought,” a chasm that many philosophers have insisted to be unbridgeable. Haidt explores these moral-psychological issues in highly readable form in his 2006 book, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Here’s a photo of my personal well-worn copy of Haidt’s book:
Based on his experiments, Haidt has been extraordinarily successful in describing the moral differences distinguishing conservatives and liberals. Which group is more moral? That isn’t the right question, according to Haidt. Both of these groups sincerely strive to be “moral.” Conservatives and liberals differ in the way they characterize morality because they base their differing moral senses on different measures. Based on Haidt’s research, there are the five separate measures (I think of them as tectonic plates) that underlie all moral systems. Conservative morality substantially draws on all five of these five measures:
– harm/care
– fairness/reciprocity
– ingroup/loyalty
– authority/respect, and
– purity/sanctity
For liberals, however, the moral domain consists primarily (or only) of the first two of these five measures (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity). For liberals, the other three measures (I’ll call them “conservative measures”) tend to fly under the liberal radar. In fact, many liberals scoff at claims that the conservative measures (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity) have anything at all to do with morality. To avoid a …
I am a practicing Roman Catholic, and will vote for Barack Obama for President of the United States. Not only will I vote for Senator Obama, I will do so gladly and with a clear conscience. The reasons are many. This lengthy post enumerate many of those reasons, providing ample links in support.
I accept the Roman Catholic teachings on the sanctity of human life and, to the degree the views of Senator Obama and the Democratic Party platform depart from Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life, I disagree with Senator Obama and the Democratic Party on their positions. I will work inside the party to change the positions of Senator Obama and the Democratic Party, and I will pray for change. I see my vote for Senator Obama as informed by my conscience to support a candidate not totally acceptable to Catholics but, who nonetheless poses a far lesser evil to the dignity and sanctity of life than a vote for Senator John McCain.
In my own life, I strive always to have compassion for those who disagree with me and seek to make a world where all children are recognized for the contribution they are to their families and the world, even before they are born. I will yet find a world where choice will mean whether one raises their child with the support necessary to allow the entire family to succeed, or a child will be placed for adoption by a family capable of the …
