Petunias

Here's a pic of my dad from our family reunuion. My brother couldn't make it in, and it's the first one as far as I know that he hasn't attended. Still, we had about seventy people, and everyone had a good time so far as I could tell, especially the kids. My kids have a plethora of first and second cousins who are their age to play with. I think there were actually close to twenty youngsters in attendance.

Well, I was feeling guilty for disappearing from the blogging world for a few days after I decided to take an unannounced (even to myself) vacation. I had a babysitting issue on Friday, and since I was already taking yesterday and today off, I decided that working on Monday would just be pointless. I thought that the world might forget all about me, but since no one else seems to have keeled over form all the blogging they’ve been doing lately either, I guess I don’t look too inattentive. I used the six days off as wisely as possible.

On Friday I mostly just laid around (I think, it’s already a little hazy) but on Saturday I kicked into high gear, cleaning my entire house, even washing dishes and mowing the yard. If you know me much at all, you know I hate both of these activities and for me to complete both on the same day was just terrible. I also managed to clean up my back porch, a project I’d been aiming to do for a while. I have a nice covered porch in the back, and since I basically live in a ravine with a steep hillside on both sides, it makes for a quiet place to relax, grill out, drink a few beers, and etc. A few friends and I accomplished all these later that evening. At the store that day, I’d bought all the makings for some good hamburgers and a brand new grill. I still haven’t moved to gas, but a bigger charcoal unit was overdue, if least if I planned to entertain. After quite a night of drinking, talking, listening to tunes, playing poker, even a very small amount of dancing, I finally piled in the bed about 5:40 in the morning. At about 6:30 I was disturbed by a feeling in my stomach much like a small child playing jump rope. My first thought was, “Hey, I can’t be getting ready to throw up, I was almost sober when I went to bed.” Then I decided better safe than sorry, so away to the facilities I went. As I was stepping inside the bathroom I thought, “I should have been hurrying!” I remember actually descending toward the bowl as the pressure in my stomach overcame the restraint in my throat. My lips didn’t even make an effort. I did eventually find my place at the foot of the porcelain altar. Anyway, I spent quality time on Sunday mopping my bathroom floor, and a couple walls, and the side of the sink, and the side of the tub, and the cabinet, and the back of the toilet, and I still need to wash that shower curtain. Wondering what could have brought this surprise on, I wondered if perhaps it was the hamburger meat I had eaten from when the grill had gone out a little early. Then I remembered that I had bought some of it at a discount. Maybe next time I buy the cheap meat, I’ll remember to cook it just a little better.

Sunday and Monday were used for recovery operations, and for watching Cars, a pretty decent cartoon. Pixar has once again raised the animation bar. Yesterday I took the wife and kids to King’s Island, and I’ll write more about that later… to be continued.

Before I begin, I want to point out that there is a significant update to poker notes.

I had an interesting nightmare last night. Like most nightmares it didn’t begin as such, but I don’t remember the prelude. What I do remember is being ushered toward a huge auditorium- like room, which was contained in a large, incredibly complex building. The room was almost a semicircle, the back wall being circular and the front being formed by a huge glass window, through which we could see an inner room which was in the same shape but smaller. We, a large group of random people, were separated into two groups outside this room, and most of us were shown into the large room through the end, and a few were shown into the smaller room. In the larger room where I was the floor was covered with sand. It was actually a beach, with dark murky water covering the back of the room and it was actually sloped downward toward the water. It was dim inside this room, and the room really was huge, perhaps three hundred fifty feet wide at the front from one flat side to the other, around the bend, of course, and nearly five hundred feet at the back. There were tables set up with food and drink, and various amusements like one might find on any beach. We were told to do what we wanted. Through the front wall we could see the inner room, which was of course much smaller. It seemed to be somewhat lower than our floor, but perhaps the same if all the sand and water were gone. It was dark except for a red light, which didn’t seem to have a source. Inside that room were many tables like you might find in a clinic, with stirrups, straps, and etc. These tables were covered with gore. The walls were hung with hooks and various power tools and these too were covered with blood and chunks of meat. As we were shown into the large room, four or five of our number were pushed into this smaller room and were made to lie down in the tables. Much to our horror the people who had been pushing us around started strapping them down and tearing them slowly apart with the power tools. If this weren’t gruesome enough, we could see the blood splash up on the walls and toward our own glass window, but we couldn’t hear a sound. It all happened in complete silence. A large amount of time seemed to pass, and though some of us were exploring a cramped set of passages in the back wall looking for a way out, others began to experience denial about what was happening before our eyes. Every few hours, the people in the front room would come to the back room and grab another person, and then they would be tortured to death. Just as we were beginning to make progress and contact someone on the outside through some method that was unclear, they came back in for another victim. They chose the one person who had completely succumbed to denial. I know who she was in my dream, but that really isn’t important, except that her name was Shelly. I didn’t know her very well except that she wasn’t bright, she was a large woman with big doe eyes, and I suppose she fit the character that I needed in my dream. They came into the room and she was actually frolicking at the farthest wall. She was engaged in some sort of game with one or two of the others, and she was having a merry old time, completely ignoring what was happening in the front room. Of course, when we heard the door open, and we knew they’d come for some one else, everyone froze expectantly. Even Shelly looked up. When they looked at her, I could see the fear in her big doe eyes. They began taunting her, “Oh, Shelly! It’s your turn, Shelly!” “Come on over here, Shelly, it’s okay. Don’t you want to go to the front room?” Shelly at first responded with a frightened quiet, “No.” As they kept calling at her though, she began to cry, harder and harder, blubbering louder and louder, falling down on the beach and begging not to be taken to her death. For some reason, when they actually grabbed her and took her away and began torturing her, with her panic-stricken and blubbering, but in complete silence to me, it didn't seem as bad as when they were taunting her. I looked away, and continued trying to form an escape plan. Finally our contact with the outside brought an armed intervention and our captors were all killed and I woke up. Perhaps what bothered me about the whole nightmare the most was that the horror of the situation didn’t really occur to me until after I woke up. My first thought was, “Wow, what a weird dream,” and then as I reflected on what had actually happened, I thought, “That was a nightmare. First one I’ve had in a while.” But then it bothered me that during the time I was in the room being forced to watch people tortured to death, people that I knew, I was observing the whole thing as if disconnected from the experience, as if being trapped there until I could escape was just a negative outcome that I wanted to avoid. My own lack of fear, and my own lack of reaction to the incredible horrors involved scared me more than the nightmare had.

Sorry for the delay.

al-Zarqawi is dead apparently. That's good news. The speculation has already begun that he was ratted out by people loyal to bin Laden for his recent attempts to position himself at the top of the terrorist food chain. One way or the other, he probably never saw it coming. Those laser guided bombs are a neat trick. Now word whether this one was made completely of cellulose.

Blogger seems healthier lately, so I may chance republishing. For those who don't know, any change to the format of a blogspot page has to be accomplished by republishing the site. This can be a tiresome and scary process when blogger is sluggish, like it has been lately. I mostly just want to add a couple links and maybe re-arrange the link order. One I want to add is Derek Stewart's blog. You can check it out here.

In response to the Brad's criticism of my remarks regarding objective morality, I have this to say: I accidentally confused the issue at hand by including my own subjective opinions in my post, about what is moral and immoral. I did this primarily because I don't want his readers, and especially my readers, to think that I am some kind of cold-hearted monster who sees nothing wrong with genocide and pedophilia in the grand scheme of things. Brad will attack this statement with fervor, but I think that it stands true, whether reasonable or not, for a thinking person to accept that while there may not be an objective morality, we are not necessarily prevented from forming our own opinions about what is moral and not moral, and attempting to persuade others to follow our own model. What I meant to say by an imperfect understanding of needs was that I view my own opinions regarding pedophilia and genocide to be superior to the opinions of those who have engaged in those actions in the past based on my increased understanding. I value human life. I value the sanctity of a child's body, in that it should not be used for the sexual gratification of another. These are my values. I will attempt to enforce my model of morality on others whenever possible. Through the actions and ideas of many others like me, this viewpoint becomes included in the societal framework that I spoke of. I don't pretend that what I believe is dictated by divinity. Actually that's more to the point. I think we've gotten off on the wrong track. I was trying to expose holes in your arguement, instead of really presenting a case of my own, and in response you've tried to expose the hole sin my argument. I would submit this. There may be an objective morality. My opinion is that first of all, the objective perfect morality may not be the perfect morality for us to live by, it may not be practical for our survival as a species. Second of all, the best way to discover the perfect objectve and most practical morality is through the evolutionary process that I have previously described. Third, it is possible to function using a morality or several ideas of morality thatare imperfect. Whatever the perfect objective morality is, I do not believe that it is divinely decreed, let alone already in written form.

Brad, I’m sorry to take so long to leave any comment, but I wanted to take time to digest each morsel of what you’re saying before deciding how I like it. After all, the food that pleases the tongue but inflames the stomach can only be partially enjoyed.

First let me say that in attacking my question in your post “A Response” I think you incorrectly concluded (which you corrected in your next post) that I included a statement of purpose in my answer to the question of morality, when in fact it was the reverse that I posited, including a statement of morality within the answer to my question of purpose. The answer to my question of purpose was intended to be generic enough to escape meaning, however, and your eventual conclusion that in leaving it so generic it leaves objective morality impossible to achieve is correct. I would further assert that a society in which no objective morality exists could nonetheless be a fruitful one and in fact is a fruitful one. My main point is that as long as the society’s members views of morality all fit within a certain framework, and the society has measures to alleviate the tension when they do not (i.e. a criminal justice system), then it can be fruitful for all its members.

This does not address the contradiction within each individual however. You are right to say that each individual must have his own morality, and it must come from somewhere, but often the morality within an individual (which should be fairly cohesive depending on the complexity of the individual, for better or worse) and the morality within the society, which is usually not very cohesive, are tied together. The individual contributes to the framework of morality of the society at the same time that that framework partially structures his own morality.

While I’m still re-reading the response to my question, I’d also like to address the Aldous Huxley quotation. While it is true that some atheists intentionally mar their own worldview for pragmatic or selfish reasons, it is mistaken to assume that all people who fail to find a well-structured meaning in the universe are as selfish as Huxley. While there is no doubt that atheism is handy to the wicked (as defined by own particular worldview), there can be other, less-selfish reasons to disbelieve. In fact, to attack disbelief at this early juncture is coming at the whole argument from the wrong perspective. I think it was your original intention to approach this from the perspective that God might not exist, and therefore you should prove that he does, rather than to try to prove that people who believe God doesn’t exist are inferior for their motives alone. In the next paragraph you tread even more squarely against this principle. To answer your question, it is most certainly possible that most of those who do not believe, at least among those who once believed but no longer do, do not believe for selfish reasons. The mere fact that something is often believed for the wrong reasons does not alone make it untrue, however.

Perhaps I should have re-read “Morality Part One” before approaching some of the topics above, but I find it is a much simpler post, and more to the point of what I was discussing. You imply that for us to have the ability to “judge” another for his transgressions against society we must have some sort of objective morality. The framework I suggested exists within every society as a set of limits, implied by the laws of the land, as well as the understood social conventions about what is done and what is not done. Sometimes the social morality will come to disagree with these laws, and these laws might be changed, or sometimes just ignored. There is strife every day when different elements’ moralities do not match up perfectly with one another. For instance, take any current political debate of an issue that you want and you will find that issues of differing morality fall at the heart of the question. One group pushes in one direction while another group pushes in another direction. Both groups believe they are right, and that to disagree is to be immoral. Is it immoral for an expectant mother to abort her fetus? Of course it is, by the pro-lifers’ standard of morality, just as by the pro-choicers’ standard of morality it is immoral to take away her decision to choose abortion. Because both of these can exist within society, it is fair to say that both exist within the framework of the society’s morality, and while the law reflects one viewpoint, it has in the past and may in the future reflect the viewpoint of the other. What would be outside the framework of the society’s morality in this case, would be, and to be fair I’ll give two examples, if the government decided to make abortion mandatory for people with large families whom they are unable to support. Does this seem aberrant to you? It should. It is outside the framework of morality of the society that I believe you peacefully exist within. It’s also just as aberrant for a zealot to bomb an abortion clinic killing staff and clients. It fails to fall within the limits.

What seems perhaps wrong to someone who believes in an objective morality, and therefore a morality that is well defined, is that sometimes the limits of the framework of social morality are not where we think. They can be downright fuzzy and misunderstood. That’s because they come from the shared (and sometimes not shared) perception of millions of individuals. We constantly cause each other annoyance because we do not conform perfectly to each other’s standards, and yet, by and large, we get by. When Roseanne scratched herself in public before butchering the national anthem, she caused a scandal for a few days. She offended the framework, though she had committed no legal offense. Later, when Jesco White, the Dancing Outlaw, visited her to do a guest spot on Roseanne she was offended by his swastika tattoos, in exactly the same way, and yet no one was seriously harmed in either scandal, and life went on for all involved.

Speaking of swastikas, there are still the Nazis to consider. I would have you believe that the Nazis running the ovens at Nuremberg were in fact behaving morally within a morality that they believed existed, and they forced their own moralities to accept what had been placed upon them artificially. Germans did not share this morality at large, but it was an extension intentionally built on existing conventions in their society. What we fail to do, when we say that if this were true, the Germans were behaving morally and it excuses their actions, is to assume that society is required to punish or reward based on a moral constant. Indeed, when the concentration camps were liberated, society’s moral framework drastically changed for these Nazis. Suddenly they had been behaving immorally, based on the new standard, our standard enforced by military might, that they were then forced to exist within. To assume that we must allow them to continue to be judged based on their own perception of limits at the time of their actions is shortsighted, and in fact we charged many of them as war criminals. To say that because we ultimately find genocide immoral means that it is ultimately so is incorrect. Of course most of us believe genocide is wrong, but ultimately you’ve yet to prove that it’s objectively wrong.

In your post “Morality Part Two” you make the case for the social framework of morality, and I find it unfortunate that we believe in different origins for this framework. The Nazi case actually refutes your argument, but you dismiss that by implying that they were all lying, evil people, and not conforming to the morality that they knew existed. I think I’ve already addressed the bulk of the material here, but paragraph one deserves special attention. In it you make several statements about the nature of objective moral truth, and they are all absolutely correct, if we assume that it exists. The case for its existence at this point in the argument is still weak, so though we can make statements about it that must be true by the nature of the thing, those statements shouldn’t be confused with evidence toward its existence.

In “Morality Part Three” you posit that because morality is mostly the same everywhere we must assume that it comes from the same source. I agree wholeheartedly that it does come from the same source, but that source is not the well-defined moral code of a supreme being, but rather the nature of mankind, and of all the rest of existence as well. We have the same basic needs, and the same requirements of the societies in which we live. Is it not natural then that we develop moral codes that are mostly the same? In fact, we could say that a moral code that does not meet the needs of those who have control of the society cannot long exist. In pre-revolution France, I’m sure that it was immoral for the aristocracy to be treated with disrespect and immoral to cut the heads off members of the royal family, but this moral framework did not meet the needs of the society, and eventually the unsatisfied took power and quickly changed it. The social morality of every society is constantly evolving, toward meeting the needs of those that must conform to it, and in proportion to the amount of power that each element has to determine it. With this evolutionary process of meeting the needs of those involved, it isn’t unusual to see that moral codes are much the same everywhere. The wrong answers on our moral Scan-tron then, where morality does not match up with meeting the needs of the society members at large, are due to a variety of reasons. First and foremost, throughout history, the moral framework has been skewed toward those with the power to alter it. The French aristocracy is just such an example, and all aristocracies for that matter. When the power changes hands, the moral framework changes along with it. The second reason we have “wrong answers” is due to an incomplete understanding of what the needs of the society actually are. Societies have allowed things that should have been disallowed (Greek acceptance of pedophilia) and banned things that should have been allowed (eating of pork) because those societies had an imperfect understanding of need. The Greeks didn’t understand that the boys they took into their beds were harmed psychologically and emotionally (not to mention physically) and the Jews thought because people often got sick from eating pork that it all must be bad meat, and condemned by God. These are but two examples among what I’m sure must be millions, some of which you and I might find incendiary to this day. Your primary concern, however, was not the wrong answers but all of the answers that appear to be the same, the “right answers.” The fact that they exist is so unsurprising to me I find it difficult to argue its meaning. I already knew the empire existed, and it is the empire of nature itself.