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Do right and wrong exist?
I'm curious about objective right and wrong. If you believe in God, this is a no-brainer. Some things are wrong, some things are right, simply because God says so and He knows. But if you don't believe in God, can you still believe in objective morality? I personally don't think you can. I mean, what do you base it off of? How do you find out what's objectively right or wrong? (By objective I mean "existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality." from dictionary.com)
Sure, there's subjective morality. Any idea of right or wrong come up with by a human is by definition subjective. That's all well and good. Problem is that it only applies to people who believe in it and it gives them no authority to proclaim anything as "what we should be doing." Very often everybody disagrees with each other and we don't get anywhere. (Just look at Congress for an example of this.)
Maybe you disagree with me and you think there is objective morality but no God. That's fine. I would like to ask you to answer a question for me though. Let's pick an easy one. Why is rape objectively wrong? Don't misunderstand me, I can't think of a single instance where rape wouldn't be wrong. I believe very strongly that sexual abuse is one of the greatest evils in the world. Why is it evil? If you can answer me without using a God-based or subjective argument, I'll concede the point.
That point is this: Without God, there is no such thing as right and wrong, only the things we call right and wrong. And since nobody can agree on what to call what, we're all in a lot of trouble.
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natasha nikulina 50+
But maybe the answer is simple : the rightness is to be measured, always, by the degree to which it serves the good of the whole, not the ambition of the part. This is because the uni-verse, across all fractals of reality is ONE.
Mark Meijer 100+
natasha nikulina 50+
Yes
I'll think about it. I feel that it must be not quite so, but at the moment i have nothing but feeling.
I'll be back :)
Mark Meijer 100+
I await your return!
natasha nikulina 50+
"Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma
see no Dharma in everyday actions.
They have not yet discovered that
there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma."
In QM , each process of the Whole is the Whole.
Edited
It may mean that inside your life/Whole you balance right / wrong as well.
" As above so below "
We are condemned to live on the consequences of our taste. If one has no sense of beauty he/she is doomed to the appalling nightmare.
Beauty/ Truth/ Love is one thing, they always come together.
'Whenever Beauty looks,
Love is also there;
Rumi :
Your embrace some form
saying, "I am this."
By God, you are not this
or that or the other
you are "Unique One"
YOU ARE THRONE AND PLACE AND KING
(the emphasis is mine) :)
Mark Meijer 100+
But I don't see anything in there to suggest that there can be something that is not for the good of the whole (of existence, the one reality you mentioned). Tell me how can anything detract from reality? How can anything be bad for reality? How can anything make it less than one? Is it not here to play, to be, to experience? Is there any possible way to prevent it or hinder it or diminish it at all? Can you kill reality? Can you hurt it in the slightest?
Isn't everything always its own doing and in its own service, no matter what?
natasha nikulina 50+
And yes...
Actually, i didn't come back with the argument against, but with the extension of ' Yes '
"As above so below " is the key.
I have more than 'feeling' now, it's not understanding, but ' standing under ' , it means that it is difficult to say.
That's why i've used quotes, quotes ...not other people's thoughts. It's my thoughts, but they're dressed better.:) .
I'll be back, if/when i manage to condense my 'standing under' into understanding .
natasha nikulina 50+
Btw. ' feeling' is very important. For me it's a primary data. It's intuition that does not dare to speak itself. Because for rational mind it would be nonsense, but for subtle mind 'non sense' is good, because sense is sooooo limited
So,
" As above so below "
Above is all that is and not quite IS, perfect beauty of undisturbed stillness, everything is reconciled in all possible directions... and so is Below, our reality where wrong and right is balanced within itself by constant motion for it is mirroring Above and you have no chance to hurt reality whatever you are doing, it'll find the way to reconcile your ' wrong' with someone's 'right', which is only possible because of your 'wrong'. On the scale of Reality right/wrong makes no sense at all.
So, we get the picture.
And here is my extension :
Above is the Same, Below is always changing to stay the same. In our human domain it is a hustle and bustle, confusion , drama ... i make my choices for myself, you make your choices for yourself , they ( we don't like them :) ) also make their choices for themselves.. human history, in short.
And now imagine , we all fallow the golden rule: " Dethrone yourself from the center of your world, put another there ... ", what our human history will look like ?
There will be no history at all ! Below will be Above like: undisturbed joy of being !
It's like the phase transition in physics , it changes the substance of the stuff so dramatically that it becomes another stuff. Water becomes ice or steam. ( again...as above so below ) Some call it ' paradigm shift ', religions intuit it and call Paradise on Earth. What we need is to practice ' don't do to others..." , there are no others, anywhere, whatever you are doing to others ( be it people or nature ) you are doing to yourself, because the uni-verse, across all fractals of reality is ONE.
Does it make sense ? :)
Mark Meijer 100+
Wrt. 'feeling', you can make a distinction between intuition and emotional reactivity. What I meant by 'feeling' claiming to lend credence to thought, is when you are having a lot of thoughts about something propped up by emotional charge, then that tends to make those thoughts 'feel' very convincing and seemingly true or real at that moment. But that's not intuition, intuition makes no noise and no arguments, it doesn't have any emotional charge to it and doesn't try to convince you.
Wrt. "Dethrone yourself from the center of your world, put another there"... Like you said, there are no others. And there is no you. The "you" that is "Unique One" and "throne and place and king" etc. is not you as a person, but is reality as you (and as everyone else). As this. Can't dethrone reality from itself. The golden rule is nice from an individual perspective, but from the perspective of reality as a whole, there are no individuals, and everything is always already in its own (your own) service. "We" are not one, because there is no "we", only this.
If there is heaven (and hell) on earth, this is already it. This has always been it, and will always be it, whatever paradigm makes no difference. Heaven and hell, just like right and wrong, are a state of mind. Nothing "below" exists objectively, "below" is "above" as this. If someone does something "bad" to you, it's also reality acting in its own service. It doesn't become hell when someone does something "bad" to you, or heaven when we all sing Kumbaya around a campfire. Only if that's what you make out of it (and whatever you make out of it is of course also just reality acting in its own service).
But all this is just talk.
natasha nikulina 50+
I feel exactly how you've described, when i have a ' feeling'
Thanks ! :)
And Yes... to everything you've said, very well put.
What i am trying to say is maybe it's time for us to EVOLVE , and it's " also just reality acting in its own service" ?
Mark Meijer 100+
We're always in the middle of something big, because we're always in the middle of everything that we know of. And everything that we know of is always in transition from how it was to how it will be. It's never not been. Of course there are all sorts of arguments about why this time might be different. And there are also all sorts of arguments about why this time is exactly the same as ever. But no amount of theorizing is going to amount to anything more than speculation. It's just keeping yourself occupied with mind games.
So, who knows. And who cares, really. I'm interested in less mind games, not more. As far as I'm concerned, we'll just have to see what happens. Or not :P. Que sera sera.
natasha nikulina 50+
.I can't say No, it's different , because i don't know exactly what new age spirituality is. But i think that New Age philosophy hopelessly flattens the thing.
" We are always in the middle of something big "
Yes, but this ' big' is always slightly different, it is never the same in size and intensity.
It's growing, speeding up and pace is relentless.
Maybe we have a kind of a ' similar' picture in mind, but i try to make the bridge between the 'picture' and life. I am not quite satisfied with a picture that doesn't come even tangentially with the life you and me are experiencing.
Scot Wilcox 10+
natasha nikulina 50+
God doesn't judge you, God experience ' to be ' through you.
We are not punished FOR our selfishness, we are punished BY our selfishness.
Scot Wilcox 10+
Louise Kyte