Hammurabi's Muse

23 Jan, 2011 | Brian |

Religion claims to be the source of morality. Without religion, they say, there is no reason to be good. From another perspective, they say that someone who puts no stake in religion is automatically bankrupt of morals, depraved, very probably hedonistic, and undeniably nihilistic. Note there is a difference between a person who belongs to a different religion and a person who is nonreligious. If you're in a different religion (or a different sect of the same religion), you're seen as basically sound but mistaken to some degree. Whereas the nonreligious person is completely, dangerously off the moral map.

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Unraveling the problem

25 Apr, 2008 | Brian |

This is a good follow-up to my earlier post on the subject. To me, it is patently clear that some kinds of behavior should - I guess karmically - lead to bad consequences. In its mildest form, I think that behavior like mass deception for your private benefit deserves punishment. I wish nothing but harm on the portfolio managers that dupe thousands of people into bad deals. But, perhaps unexpectedly, I would rather take up such topics under the rubric of Science. For the time being, I would like to assume that there are no degrees of misbehavior. There is only...nonconformance.

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But is it Bad?

12 Feb, 2008 | Dave |

Resisting authority or violating norms may be exhilarating, even productive. But when is it wrong? When do you cross the line from ignoring the rules to engaging in evil?

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Two Kinds of Good

09 Feb, 2008 | Dave |

Having started Mere Christianity on several occasions and never completed it (I hate admitting that), I never had the benefit of Lewis' wisdom on this topic. However, several of my friends and I came up with a corollary some years ago, and over time those thoughts have evolved into a similar view -- that there are two kinds of good.

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Unauthorized access

07 Feb, 2008 | Brian |

"I aim to misbehave."
- Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

Disobedience is one of my favorite topics, and has been ever since I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, which was about 16 years ago. At that point in my life I was, if I do say so myself, an Internet pioneer. Not in the sense that I was inventing anything great, but rather that I was on the Internet. I believe it was 1991. I remember making a phone call to CompuServ and asking them if they could provide me with an Internet connection, and the poor customer service representative tried her best to pretend she knew what I was talking about. Of course she didn't. Hardly anyone did, back then. But I had a need to be on, the same way people feel the need now when their net connection goes down. You can't bear the disconnectedness.

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