This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and which I’ve actually mentioned in arguments in my personal blog (in Portuguese), about the abortion referendum in Portugal. It was also inspired in part, by posts by TXStorm in the Way of the Mind Forum, and by some parts of Sam Harris’ The End of Faith.
The question is this: are morality and suffering related, or independent? In other words, when trying to figure out if a particular action is moral or immoral, should we consider the suffering that it will cause (both to ourselves and to others) the most important factor? A less important factor? Or not at all?
Well, if reducing suffering or creating joy aren’t the basis of morality, then it raises (not “begs”! I’m sick of that mistake! 
“begging the question” is a logical fallacy.) an obvious question: then what is the basis of morality? And any answer to that question, unless I’m missing something, is necessarily something arbitrary.
If morality isn’t reducing suffering or creating joy, then it’s obeying something or someone: an authority figure, a god, society, a government, etc.. And, in many cases, obeying those abstract and arbitrary “rules of morality” causes a lot of suffering to many — indeed, it’s one of the biggest causes of suffering in the world.
The biggest culprit? Religion, of course. Nothing and no one separates morality from suffering as well and as much as religion does.
Think about it. Muslims around the world torture their women (there’s really no other word for it) because of their religion. Women in many countries are condemned to lives of pain and humiliation, treated as worse than animals. Now, any “normal”, decent human being would feel empathy for the suffering of millions of innocent women, and would perhaps try to put a stop to it. But Muslim men don’t do it, because of religion. In fact, they are taught since birth that doing such a horror to their women is moral, and that not doing so would be immoral. They are blinded to the suffering they cause, because, to them, morality and suffering are unrelated.
This, of course, doesn’t happen just among Muslims. Take Christianity. AIDS runs rampant in Africa, and yet a Pope tells them that using contraceptives is a “sin”, that it’s immoral. Why? Because God “says” so. Obeying God (an arbitrary commandment) is moral; who cares about suffering? This life is but a test to see whether you go to heaven or not, anyway.
Stem cell research is banned. It could lead to the easing of the suffering of millions, but who cares about that? It’s “immoral”, because God says so. Abortion is another example: anyone who is dogmatically against it doesn’t care about the suffering of mothers and children; it offends their “morality”, so it must be forbidden.
Sex education is a bad thing, because it may lead (horror of horrors!) to young people believing that, hey, sex is not a “sin” after all, but a perfectly natural, healthy thing. And that will not do, since the Bible tells us that sex is “dirty”, and that sex between unmarried people is “sinful”. So people are kept afraid of their own sexuality, are told that any of their desires are “dirty” and “immoral”, and that sex is for reproduction only, and should never give “pleasure”.
Homosexuals are told that their sexuality is “unnatural” and “an abomination”, condemning many of them to lives of shame, of self-denial, of lies. Why? It’s in the Bible. That it will cause them to suffer during the entirety of their lives is irrelevant; who cares about suffering, anyway? Morality is obeying God, and only that matters.
I could go on, and mention the crusades, the inquisitions, the attempts of Christians to ban anesthesia (because it “interfered with God’s punishment against Eve”, believe it or not!), their attempts to prevent the end of slavery (it’s in the Bible, after all), and all the other atrocities committed in the name of religion. But there’s really no need; right now, either you have seen what’s absolutely and utterly wrong with separating morality and suffering, or are sticking — and probably will always do so — to the abstract, arbitrary “morality” of doing what someone (whether real or not) wants. If many suffer… who cares, right? You feel “moral”, and that’s what’s important.
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Great post! I’d love to see someone try to dispute the point that you’ve made.
I cringe whenever I hear a newscaster saying something like, “… and since we can’t do ‘x’… this begs the question.. what can we do?”
These people should know better than that.. where’s the circular argument there? Sure if you can’t do ‘x’, it RAISES the question.. but it does NOT ‘beg the question.’
Morality is not based upon reducing suffering or creating joy, which is clearly evidenced by the fact that it is immoral to inflict harm upon another, including killing them. This is not an act which involves reducing suffering or creating joy, quite the opposite in fact, still there is no doubt whatsoever that this is an immoral act. Here is where some would want to interject that refraining from killing someone is identical to reducing suffering, but this approach simply mistakes actual actions for potential actions, treating them as though they are identical. To actually reduce suffering I have to take away suffering from the starting point, call it N. Such an equation would look like “N-S=M” where N is our baseline, S is “suffering (the specific amount is unimportant for this point) and M is “morally acceptable/morally required/morally good” (which ever is applicable for Pedro’s description.
Now when I refrain from causing harm to someone we start with the baseline, N, and then… we stay there. Nothing has changed other than one potential course of actions was not taken. This does not change the baseline at all.
All of his is a lengthy way to simply make the objection that there is a categorical error in taking this approach, which is the only one available to try to include the acts of evil such as causing harm to another which are clearly central to morality. Necessarily therefore morality must actually include more than merely reducing harm or creating joy.
That said, it is equally clear that morality does include reducing harm and creating or increasing pleasure. These sorts of acts fall under the moral ideals category. These are the sorts of acts which are morally commendable, for which we praise people. These are differentiated from merely moral acts such as refraining from killing an innocent moral agent, or refraining from theft. We expect moral agents to refrain from those actions because they are morally obligatory, as opposed to the acts of reducing harm or increasing pleasure, which are purely voluntary and in addition to what is actually morally required.
It would be more correct to say that morality involves all issues of harm or benefit to other moral agents. This includes causing harm, as well as reducing it.
And after all of that I forgot to refute your primary premise that either morality is merely about reducing suffering or creating joy, else one must be following some human authority. My explanation above, which at no point refers to or relies upon any human authority (including the notion of a god), yet clearly demonstrates that there is more to morality than the false dichotomy presented.
What of the examination of history? What of what is required by rationality? These seem to be missing in the dichotomy presented.
Hmm, the plot thickens…
Maybe reducing pain and/or increasing pleasure aren’t actually the basis of morality (as you (I believe) say, if they were, then painlessly killing someone who was unhappy, even against their will, would be a “moral” act). But then, what is the basis of morality?
I think we both agree that it’s not subjective, it doesn’t come from society, or from someone’s arbitrary whims (whether a real human, or any perceived “god”). So, what’s the basis? Is it just not causing harm, unless in self-defence?
Sorry if I’m not fully understanding you.
Anyway, even if reducing suffering is not the basis of morality, suffering can’t be totally disconnected from it, I believe. That’s what the examples I mentioned in the post do; their “morality” causes the needless suffering of millions (banning stem cell research, demonizing sex, etc.).
Pedro:
I feel that morality and suffering are completely unrelated. If your familiar with the dialogs of plato you may have read that the mind is the only judge of morality and ethics. The body informs the mind of that which causes pain and that which brings pleasure. If morality was based on pain and pleasure surely we would have a society full of people trying to please themselves without consideration for pain of others. The truth about morals, in my humble opinion is found in consistancy. To find out if a behavior or action is moral, we test it with consistancy. Ask yourself “If everyone in our society behaved in this manor would we everyone feel content. In other words if the majority of society accepts a behavior it is concidered moral.
We cannot be the judge of another cultures morals. We can only judge if the behavior directly affects us.
For example: Muslim women are treated bad by American standards, but
IF they are content with the way they are treated, then the treatment of muslim women is moral. Only if THEY do not approve would it be immoral.
If society accepts a behavior that causes everyone to suffer, (for whatever reason) it could would also be moral.
Excellent topic here pedro, check out my site if you have time.
[quote post="220"]For example: Muslim women are treated bad by American standards, but IF they are content with the way they are treated, then the treatment of muslim women is moral. Only if THEY do not approve would it be immoral.[/quote]
Sorry, I cannot accept this relativistic point of view. This essentially becomes a majority rule situation. The majority then acts to squash dissent so that everyone at least voices the belief that they agree with it. For instance, how do you know if the women in a Muslim society approve of their treatment or not? Given the society, it certainly would not be in their best interest to say they do not approve.
However, Pedro, I am no closer to suggesting what morality should be based upon. I am hesitant to suggest that there are certain rules, for lack of a better term at the moment, that have room for exceptions. I cannot answer the inevitable questions that such a view would raise, so for the moment the best I can say is “I do not know.”
Pedro,
You are completely correct that morality is not subjective, and neither is it relative, both of which are dispoved by what is necessitated by rationality, vulnerability, and knowledge of our surroundings, but also by the fact that across time and culture the same moral rules are expressed (which is unsurprising once we recognize that rationality and vulnerability necessitate that morality be of a certain form)
One of the sad confusions that arise and obscure such discussions is the confusion between religion or religious doctrine and morality. Since the religious (particularly those in power) are dishonest and power/control seekers they intentionally try to confuse religion and morality depsite the fact that the two are (necessarily) at odds with one another. They assert that religion dictates morality, just as they used to try to assert that religion dictates the nature of physics and cosmology (and yes of course some still try..). Rather than starting with observation and following that with reason to see what is necessitated, they begin with religion and then stop. They claim that morality is relative, or that morality is what they dictate that it is, without ever allowing reality or reason to enter into the picture.
One of the results is that the language becomes misunderstood. We have meaningless phrases like “xn morality” or the like which when considered in the light of their analogies such as “xn physics” are clearly absurd in the extreme. As a result of this you get the sadly mistaken notion that morality is created, or should be created, rather than recognizing that it is no more created than is physics or mathematics. We might decide which particular words or symbols to use, but each is merely describing an aspect of reality.
Back to the real issue, yes harm of course remains part of morality, and if one takes this a step further in recognizing that the ability to be harmed (vulnerability) is necessary for morality, we could correctly say that vulnerability is one of the foundational elements of morality. After all if it were impossible for one to be harmed it would be impossible to act immorally with regard to that individual. Rationality must also be one of those foundational elements, as evidenced by our behavior towards children, animals, and inanimate objects. We, by which I mean all rational beings, do not hold those entities which are not rational (in the weakest, broadest sense along the lines of what most folks think of when they hear “sentience”) morally accountable for their actions. The tree which drops a limb on the woman walking underneath it is not morally condemned, in fact we would consider such a condemnation to be ludicrous. Likewise we do not claim that the child who knocks the car into or out of gear, resulting in the death of an innocent moral agent, committed murder, no we recognize that the child is not a rational entity in this broad sense and is thus not morally responsible for its actions. The lion that eats the gazelle is not committing murder, for neither the lion nor the gazelle is rational, though both are vulnerable.
So what “causes” morality to exist? At the very least it is the existence of rational, vulnerable entities, in exactly the same way that physics would not exist without the existence of particles or energy.
@ Jim
i would like to further define my position. Though it is very hard to nail down the exact nature of morality, i still maintain that consistancy not suffering is a key factor in morals. This is what i mean by consistancy, take the muslim scenario for example:
If men in a muslim society were treated in the same manner as the women, would the men still accept the behavior. If they do not accept it, then it is not consistant, and therefore immoral.
@ Txstorm:
Excellent reply here, you make alot of good points. I would how ever like to challenge your correlation with suffering and moral behavior.
I would like to show how a behavior that causes suffering is not immoral.
In regard to sick person; When a doctor preforms an treatment (like an operation, or chemo therapy) that makes one suffer, in order to eventually heal, it is not considered immoral.
[quote post="220"]After all if it were impossible for one to be harmed it would be impossible to act immorally with regard to that individual.[/quote]
What about lying or being deceptive?
Again i keep finding consistancy as an explaination for moral behavior. Consistancy explains both scenarios that i have offered. Lying is immoral, not because someone is harmed physically, but because when everyone behaves accordingly, it is unacceptable.
If everyone had no issue with being lied to, it would be not be considered immoral behavior to lie.
Looking forward to your reply
Rev,
You might have missed that I used “harm” except when directly commenting on Pedro’s use of “suffering.” This is a key difference.
As to your doctor situation, assuming consent of the patient, there is no harm (defined by the patient of course). There may be pain, but the patient weighs the value of the pain against the value of the cure, and most often chooses the cure as their best outcome. They choose to allow the pain in order to reduce the harm of the illness or other medical condition (broken leg, etc)
Now in the case of an absence of consent (as differentiated from direct NON-consent) such as when the patient is unconscious, then we do have a definite harm, but we must choose whether to risk the harm being greater than the cure *in the eyes of the patient* or not. If not, then we have done harm to the patient.
In the case of direct non-consent, to treat that patient would clearly be a harm since treating him against his will violates his freedom, his self-ownership, as well as the most basic level of respect for persons. It does not matter that you or I might think that the treatment is better for him than doing without it, since we each have complete and exclusive right to our own bodies, to our own self, only the individual can make such determinations.
As a convenient happenstance, this bit of clarification also serves to demonstrate that consistency is not only insufficient for morality, it is not a necessary condition either. Whether to treat or not will vary depending upon the patient, thus giving us inconsistency as a condition of morality.
As for lying, it too is a harm, though certainly in some cases I would agree with you that it is not directly a cause of suffering (though clearly it can be). Here too is a case where differentiating harm from suffering clarifies the confusion.
The basic harms are
Pain
Loss of pleasure
Death
Disability
Loss of freedom
In the case of lying or other deception, there is a loss of ability (opportunity) because of the deception. For instance, if I promise to meet you for lunch, but fail to show up, I have deprived you of the opportunity, ability, to do something else.
It is also worth mentioning that we trade off some of these harms to ourselves for opportunities for something we value more. Furthermore, we individually value each of the harms differently. Where some might put pain at or near the top of the list to avoid, others might well put loss of freedom or disability at or near the top of the list. The result is that when these harms come into conflict we end up with different moral treatments for different people. Rigid consistency as you seem to be describing simply does not work.
For another example, look to Kant, who clearly adopted this sort of rigid consistency at the expense of morality. The classic example of this is lying. For Kant, if a raving ax murderer is pursuing your friend, and you hide your friend in your back room, then when the murderer knocks on your door asking where your friend is, you MUST tell him. Clearly this is NOT required by morality, though it is equally clearly required by this notion of consistency. Since the two provide different results consistency cannot be identical to morality.
The difficulties arise for consistency when one fails to take into account that individuals value harms and benefits differently, and when one assumes that there cannot exist justified exceptions to the moral rules. The first part of my post address most specifically the former, with the murderer example more exemplifying the latter. Clearly it is moral to lie to the murderer to prevent the death (or extreme harm) to your friend (though it need not be your friend at all, just any moral agent who is themselves not posing a threat to another innocent moral agent).
@ txstorm:
Excellent reply tx, do you have a blog that i might visit, i think i would enjoy to read some more of your opinions, I would be glad to post a link as well, i can tell that your a very rational individual.
Now i totally agree with your reply to my doctor scenario, i did overlook your statement regarding the difference between “Harm” and “suffering”. sorry for making you repeat your position.
In regard to your reply to the “consistancy theory”.
[quote post="220"]The difficulties arise for consistency when one fails to take into account that individuals value harms and benefits differently,[/quote]
Are you suggesting that we have an individual moral code, that might differ from one person to the next.
[quote post="220"]…and when one assumes that there cannot exist justified exceptions to the moral rules.[/quote]
I agree, there is always a justified exception. I dont feel that this is an argument against consistancy. If moral behavior was fixed you could say “Lying is immoral in any situation.” If this statement was reality, then clearly moral behavior would have a correlation with consistancy, as shown in your axe murderer scenario.
If I lie to protect someone from harm, isn’t that consistant and therefore moral behavior? Wouldn’t everyone hope that another would lie to protect them from an insain murderer?
So i would like to make two statements in my view about the nature of morals….
1. Moral behavior is consistant.
2. immoral behavior is inconsistant.
3. one cannot state that a specific behavior is always immoral, there are justified exceptions. An exception is justified if it is consistant.
I feel like i am close to a definition here, but maybe i misunderstood your reply,
please correct me if you feel im in error.
*typo
[quote post="220"]I agree, there is always a justified exception. I dont feel that this is an argument against consistancy. If moral behavior was fixed you could say “Lying is immoral in any situation.” If this statement was reality, then clearly moral behavior would have no correlation with consistancy, as shown in your axe murderer scenario. [/quote]
Rev,
No blog on this sort of subject, though I am considering it in part due to the quality of Pedro’s blog. Thanks for asking though.
I do not mean to give the impression that there is any such thing as an individual morality, or any element of relative morality. What I am drawing attention to is the fact that when we speak of consistency in morality, most commonly this would be understood to refer to the same action being moral for every individual in the same situation. Thus I offered up examples of given the exact same scenario, but with different individuals, we get different actions being the morally required or morally good actions. If consistency determined morality, as I understand you to be arguing, then necessarily we would have the same actions being dictated for every individual given the same situation. Individual values would have to be irrelevent.
I am confused as to what “consistency” as you are using it in this last post, or rather as you have clarified it in your last post, adds to the notion or morality. It seems that you are simply equating the two, but in doing so limiting the meaning of “consistency” to that of “moral.” Certainly not all that is consistent is moral, and as I believe my examples amply demonstrate, not all that is inconsistent is immoral. One can consistenty kill every third individual they meet, but still be completely immoral in doing so. One can have inconsistent outcomes such as described above, and still be perfectly moral.
I suspect that you may be reaching for the notion of universality as opposed to absolute. Morality is universal in that it applies to all individuals regardless of who that individual is (though what they define as harm for themselves certainly plays a role in determining what is immoral to do TO them). Morality is not absolute in that there are not justified exceptions (such as the lying to the murderer example above). Does this distinction help?
well this subject is very complex and i don’t mean to act as if i fully understand it. But i am very curious about the nature of morality.
I guess i was being to vague with my use of the term, so hopefully this will help.
Ten individuals meet together in a room to discuss what would be considered moral. with no prior notion of what is accepted as good or bad behavior.
At the meeting a specific action is mentioned and the group discusses their approval or disapproval of the action.
The First action to discuss is Stealing anothers money.
Group member 1 says, i have no issue with stealing your money, it would be much easier that earning it through hard labor. Group members 2,3,and 4 all agree that stealing is good behavior because it saves the time and labor of earning it. But then 5 says, “but what if i steal your money?”, all of the group members, ponder, then agree that they do not want any money stolen from themselves. They determine that this action was not acceptable, when the action was applied to them.
Do on to others as you would have done to yourself. That is consistancy.
IF everyone treats you as you have treated them and you are content, and they are content, the behavior is consistant in pleasing everyone. And thus it is moral.
now as you have mentioned, not everyone responds the same way to the same action. that is were the majority must decide the best course of action. And they must decide in to act in a manner that is consistant if they were a minority.
I hope that explaination helps…
Rev,
It seems that you have not yet gotten rid of the same inconsistencies which have been noted already. Whether the majority rules for the minority, or for the majority, the fact remains that there is a difference of morality between the two choices depending on who is affected, therefore inconsistency in outcome.
As for the golden rule approach, no one, and I do mean no one at all takes this seriously. I can say that with confidence because it is not possible to live your life by the golden rule. You walk into a store to buy socks. The store owner (or president, etc) wants for you to buy the products which maximize profit, yet this fact never factors into your decision as to what to buy. You are failing to treat the owner as you would want to be treated in his shoes. So too with door to door salemen, religious fanatics who come door to door, political activists who seek signitures, etc. In almost every single situation your choice is NOT to treat the other as you would want to be treated in the situation, but rather to treat them (hopefully) with basic respect but to choose what you perceive to be best or acceptable to you.
For a more indepth handling of the failure of the golden rule check out: http://aristotle.tamu.edu/~rasmith/Courses/251/gert-paper.html
That said, what you touch upon in the theft example is rational self interest. This is the force which causes us as rational entities to extend our support of the protections of morality beyond ourself and those for whom we care to all moral agents. This is what creates or explains the univeral nature of morality. Because I want to enjoy the protections of morality for myself and those for whom I care, and because I recognize that others want this for themselves and those for whom they care, the only path available to achieve this end is to recognize that morality in fact does apply to all rational vulnerable entites.
@Txstorm,
I still agree with Pedro’s original post. I think that the word morality is sufficiently vague as to cause his position to seem like a false dichotomy.
Morality, as used by religionists can be simply a tool to coerce orthodoxy.
In the sense of “The golden rule”, one can see that it might be immoral to coerce orthodoxy.
Sure there are instances where not doing the ‘bad’ thing is simply neutral, we can’t be thinking, “Well that stranger was a helluva a guy, he didn’t rob, rape or kill me.”, all the time, we simply have to assume some moral standards and be more or less prepared for the worst.(Don’t look like a victim.)
But, there are also times when the two types of morality are kinda mixed up.
For example, Murder is bad. Murder, then stabbing the dead body 500 times is worse. Murder, then stabbing the body, then raping the body… is heinous. etc.
Murder is an example of morality that is both kinds rolled into one. Everyone should know that killing another person is wrong, plus, there is a ‘rule of orthodoxy’ against murder.
But the stabbing/raping after the murder is an affront to our sensibility… it is psychotic behavior…
In short,,,
1) morality as ‘golden rule’.. good,
2) morality as mix 1 and ‘affront to sensibility’… bad.
3) morality as a mix of 1,2 and ‘keeping the sheep in line’ ..worse.
…etc.
TX,
I will respond in depth when i have more time, till then i would like to note that i respect your position, however whether or not the golden rule proves to be a useful means of determining morality. I feel the purchasing of goods like socks, shoes and as well as similar concepts that don’t have moral context, are not credible arguments be used against the golden rule. I’m sure there are credible arguments against it, hopefully in the context of morallity, i will check your link before i respond any further.
Till then keep up the good debate….
Rev,
ANY interaction between moral agents is necessarily a situation of morality. So the counter-examples offered conclusively and positively demonstrate that in fact the golden rule fails to be a moral guide. The arguments are in fact credible because they are sound. Certainly stipulating, as you are doing here, that these are not counter-examples simply because they conclusively refute the position, is neither reasonable nor sufficient to cause the counter-examples to cease to be counter-examples.
I wonder if you would so quickly dismiss the masochist example also. In brief if you are a masochist you would abuse others under the golden rule because you yourself want to be abused. So suddenly hitting another or causing them some harm is the moral thing to do, if you truly hold that the golden rule tells us what actions are moral.
Yet another problem with the golden rule (as well as the religous doctrines which pretend to tell us what is moral) is that it cannot differentiate between what is morally required and what is morally good. I am morally required to refrain from theft, murder, etc. but doing so does not make me morally good, merely moral. If in addition to refraining from such acts I also reduce the harm to others or increase the pleasure of others, say by helping the downtrodden, I am doing something beyond what is required and therefore is commendable. So here again we have clear evidence that in fact the golden rule fails to describe morality.
pboyfloyd,
Other than noting that there are degrees of evil, which is not something I have argued against, I cannot make heads nor tails of your argument. Can you clarify?
(BTW I wonder if this is the time to move the discussion over to the forum.. There is already a thread there on morality we could use…)
@TxStorm,
Well now I’m baffled… don’t know what you didn’t understand.
Perhaps you might have commented like this…. (in brackets ‘you’)
“I still agree with Pedro’s original post. I think that the word morality is sufficiently vague as to cause his position to seem like a false dichotomy.”
(you are an idiot pboyfloyd, this makes no sense)
Morality, as used by religionists can be simply a tool to coerce orthodoxy.
(I ’see’ the words, is this a thousand monkeys typing for a thousand years kinda deal..)
In the sense of “The golden rule”, one can see that it might be immoral to coerce orthodoxy.
(Why do you have to come on here and assault my eyes with such drivel??)
Sure there are instances where not doing the ‘bad’ thing is simply neutral, we can’t be thinking, “Well that stranger was a helluva a guy, he didn’t rob, rape or kill me.”, all the time, we simply have to assume some moral standards and be more or less prepared for the worst.(Don’t look like a victim.)
(I’m sensing something about ’shades of evil…)
But, there are also times when the two types of morality are kinda mixed up.
(Blithering buffoon!!!)
For example, Murder is bad. Murder, then stabbing the dead body 500 times is worse. Murder, then stabbing the body, then raping the body… is heinous. etc.
(heads you’re a retard, tails … well I don’t know WTF tails would be..)
Murder is an example of morality that is both kinds rolled into one. Everyone should know that killing another person is wrong, plus, there is a ‘rule of orthodoxy’ against murder.
(This is beyond the ‘ken’ of any man of reason.. ridiculous)
But the stabbing/raping after the murder is an affront to our sensibility… it is psychotic behavior…
(yes,yes, but what do you MEAN by this??)
In short,,,
1) morality as ‘golden rule’.. good,
2) morality as mix 1 and ‘affront to sensibility’… bad.
3) morality as a mix of 1,2 and ‘keeping the sheep in line’ ..worse.
…etc.
(etc.?..ETC.?.. you mean that ‘all dogs are not cats’… is that what you mean…clarify man..CLARIFY, for the sake of all that is logic and reason.)
In this way, I might be able to tell what it was that I said that went under your ‘horizon’ of ‘plain common sense.’
Ian
[quote comment="10253"]
Perhaps you might have commented like this…. (in brackets ‘you’)
[/quote]
Another way is to use the “Quote” link to the right of each post’s date.
Even another way is to select some text using the mouse, and, keeping it selected, click on the “Quote selected text” link below the comment box.
By the way, I agree with TX: while this discussion is still about morality, it’s perhaps moving too much away from the original post, and the forum may be a better place.
Other than to respond to the (I hope) tongue in cheek comments by pbf, I intend to wait on the forum on this topic.
As for those comments, I take them as pure tongue in cheek, but rest assured Pbf, I would never respond in those terms.
I’m an atheist living in a muslim country and I can say that your comment about torture is plain wrong. No one tortures their wife because of religion here. Only ignorant and poor part of the society does that. And again that’s not about religion. Because do not tar all muslim countries or people with the same brush. I have muslim relatives and your comment just hurts me.
@ pedro:
This post of yours has inspired me to write a post of my own, i have also slightly altered my position, based on some new perspectives from you and txstorm. I offered my readers a link to Way of the mind for further investigation, due to the massive philosophical ground covered here in your blog. so anyway if you have time lend your thoughts. Keep up the good writing…..
bora: by “torture”, I don’t necessarily mean it in the sense of, say, tying up someone to a torture rack. There are other forms of torture, such as constant humiliation, dress codes, being treated as inferior beings, and being guilty of “adultery” if they are raped (which happens in several Muslim societies even today).
And the Quran allows Muslim men to beat their wives.