From: ralph@eddlewood.demon.co.uk   
      
   In message <1140109425.281613.180740@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,   
   Joseph H  writes   
      
   >Okay, Scott raises a fundamental point: why should we feel that our   
   >morality is superior to those "others" who kill their daughters?   
      
   Because it's ours, because we're human, and humans believe that their   
   views are superior to those of others. Otherwise they get confused. It's   
   called cognitive dissonance.   
      
   >Implicit in our position is a belief that we know more, that we are   
   >less primitive, than the other in question. On what grounds do we feel   
   >entitled to take such a stand? First, of all, we do know more.   
      
   I would put first that we are open to change. We can look at something   
   and realise that it no longer suits, so we change it. Interestingly,   
   that's exactly why others (including Scott) feel superior to us: we are   
   relativists, he sneers. Absolutely, we acknowledge.   
      
   > Also, we are much less at the behest of a religion and a culture that   
   >has as foundation a far more robust society where individual honour had   
   >to be constantly defended. Also, we are heirs in many ways of constant   
   >infusions of new thought relating to individual rights and our place on   
   >the planet - in contrast to societies largely unchanged for more than   
   >one thousand years.   
      
   Most of this, Joseph. But the societies have changed: they have running   
   water, and pop music, and traffic, and movies ... they just try to   
   pretend they haven't.   
      
   > It wasn't always like this. There is a strong case for saying that   
   >many of today's so called "primitive" societies were in fact far more   
   >sophisticated than our's at certain times in their history.   
      
   If we're talking about Islam, and we are, then calling them "primitive"   
   is absurd. Really the time at which Islam had its greatest advantage   
   over Christianity was in the golden age of Granada and Cordoba, when   
   Arab mathematicians had brought Indian ideas to Europe, and the   
   Christians were mired in doctrinal disputes.   
      
   What we rightly call "primitive" societies today have never been more   
   advanced than they are now.   
      
   > But no more. Thought may run along a limb of knowledge. As we know   
   >more and can do more our thought alters. I wish, of course, that it   
   >altered more systematically than it has done. I wish that we weren't so   
   >much at the mercy, or the whim,  of our newly-acquired freedoms and   
   >licences. I wish we had a more systematic view of human capability and   
   >human potential - and that we incorporated that view into our overall   
   >perspective on the human future.   
      
   Of course, Joseph, one of us does, don't we?   
      
   --   
   ralph   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)