Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

If you are not going to read what I write don't comment on it. I have never asserted that a "Judeo-Christian model God is the the only supportable basis for an ethical moral code". You are making the classic straw man argument. You are assigining statements to me that I never made and then arguing against those statements.

When did I resist an acceptance of a pre-Jewish moral or ethical code. By stating there is a universal moral code, obviously, that predates the Jewish written law. I have never referred to Jew, Jewish, Christian or Christian when referring to the code. That is just an ignorant assumption you made on your part.

The argument, I find, is an important question, because how we feel about right and wrong usually forms the basis of our political philosophy. People are pointing out to me their theories on a non-divine basis for morality and I am simply explaining why have rejected those ideas. I am interested in their responses because I have been searching for a rational basis for morality but I have never found one that is convincing to me. The whole scientific rational process is proposing theories and then exposing those theories to tests (or criticisms) to see if they hold up. That is what I am doing here. Why do you have a problem with that? I would find it very interesting if someone came up with a nondivine basis for morality that I thought stood up to all the problems I have found with other theories. Clearly this whole discussion is way beyond you, so why don't you just ignore it. When people get bored with it they will simply stop responding to me. In the name of all that is holy, if you don't like this exchange why not leave it alone?

Not true. At severe risk to my reputation, I told people that I thought you were funny. And you got your wife to make custom made avatars for me to give to paigow's socks. We are a microcosm of evolutionary cooperative behavior here.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

My tribe could kick your tribe's ass.

I can confirm that his reputation suffered for the assertion.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Because your fallback position cannot be proven or even tested. Your fallback position essentially amounts to the equivalent of "it happens by magic".

Dyslexia is a bitch. when i first saw this, my mind processed it as:

• insertion ass suffered

Sorry to give a serious response to your post, and maybe I am just an ignorant fool, but I have changed my position on a few things because of postings to this board. There are many people on this board (conservative and liberal) whose ideas I am very interested in and whose thoughts and arguments effect my own. If that was not the case I would not read and post to this board.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

I think the fall back position can be somewhat tested, but essentially that sums up my position pretty well. I am still considering your proposal for option C.

I think it was more likely wishful thinking than dyslexia.

And now for something completely different...
 

From Congress Daily PM, via ThinkProgress:

"Senate Majority Leader Frist will file for cloture on President Bush’s nomination of William Myers to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this week, according to sources on and off Capitol Hill, wasting no time in testing the resolve of 14 Republican and Democratic senators who forced at least a temporary halt to the battle over Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial picks. "

I would think this is more of a test of the resolve the 7 Republicans in the Group of 14, but that's just me.

Are you ready to rrrrrrrruuuuuummmmmmmbbbbbbbblllleee?

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Because we persuade each other and the better reasoned position slowly wins out. You see a microcosm of this on the board, in the fact that no one is still insisting that the WMD are in Syria, or that Hank increasingly accepts that the President lied to get political support for his war.

On the subject of Hank's Avatars - you need some new ones. You have recycled the ones you have a few times since I have been here. I used to look forward to seeing what your next one would be, but now it seems I have seen them all.

That goes for his posts, too.

No. I assume that we all start with different views of right and wrong, but that we can agree on many things, and that our views are open to reason and persuasion. Bilmore disagrees on the latter count, and I try to persuade him that he's wrong.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Why does it need a source other than their own reason? If everything needs a prior source, again you've set up the argumetn so there's only one answer.

Or maybe I should just ask you what the source of any religion's moral code is? Is "God told Moses" a satisfactory answer to you?