World Religions

When we were talking about Animal Rights Ethics today during class, I could not help but remember a short story by Neil Gaiman called Babycakes. It is about when the world runs out of animals to test on and starts to test on babies. The author said it was one of the few stories he wrote that also disturbed him. I think its funny, when you think about it, that when you replace animals with babies just how wrong these testings seem. A parallel he draws is that babies are just as unaware of there surroundings as animals, if not more so. However, as human beings, we would feel a little cannabilistic using babies in said fashion. I would like to argue, however, that some of these tests truly are necessary. Although it is unnecessary to test make-up products on monkeys as they did a few years back, but say you have a new medicine. Should we skip straight to human testing, or let it out on the market without any testing? If people did that, it would make more than just PETA angry. Although its not really right, its better than the alternative, unsafe drugs being released into the world. It is a necessary evil people will have to put up with. Besides, evil is just a point of view. The other side is always wrong, therefore evil. But not necessarily. They may simply be a little more willing to accept the fact that good is not achieved through good alone, you have to drag a little bit of evil in with it. For those of you who want to read the story here it is.

This title seems totally generic and random, but it is the best to describe my own little internal debate. Is it okay to step on someone else in order to further your own goal? Is is okay to sacrifice someone else to further yourself? This, in my opinion, could be similar to a bigger business, like Walmart, destroying a smaller business to further its profit. In my opinion, this can be alright, but their are qualifiers, as always.Your intentions must be good, otherwise this decision is unethical. You should not step on someone else simply because you want to, or you want their domain for your own good and no one elses. Although it is wrong to squash someone elses dreams, you can not achieve good purely through good. Some evil must be intertwined, otherwise you will get nowhere. Like in a war, the self-declared “Good Side” will not get anywhere by simply laying their weapons down an trying to talk it out all civilized like. You have to shoot someone else in order to win. back to the main topic, you must also not sacrifice too many others in attempting to achieve your goal. If those you hurt outweigh those whom you are trying to help, then you went wrong somewhere. As the Utilitarians say, your good must outweigh your bad. Although I could be completely wrong about this. In the end, good intentions will not be enough, though. You must carry out your plan, and make sure that you are still pulling for the same people in the end. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

War has been a problem plaguing man since he first learned how to craft weaponry. War has wiped out civilizations, wiped entire races off of the earth, or just killed alot of people. However, in my opinion, war is ocassionally a necessary evil. War is, on the odd chance, started for the right reasons. Mybe it is to stop the killing of innocents, or maybe it is for freedom, but war is justifiable. The argument that the only time it is appropriate to kill is in self-defense is sometimes not acceptable. You should not kill everyone for every little offense to your honor, but what if its to stop an attack on other people? What if your perfectly safe, but others, potentially thousands, are in danger? Are your morals, only killing in self-defense, worth a thousand other peoples lives. In turn, should you not kill one hundred to save one thousand? ocassionally, killing is justifiable, and, bicariously, so is war. I chose to agree with the realism idea on this one. People aren’t necessarily evil, but enough of them are for me to feel wary of my surroundings. Order is important in society, and people will have to be kept in order, because no matter what type of government you use, someones not going to be happy. Likewise, if the majority do not like it, then they have the right to destroy that government. Without the authority of a higher structure, thos of questionable sanity or morality will have no reason not to kill those who they view as weaker. The strong will have no reason to protect smart. In the end, war is a necessary evil. You will not achieve good by doing only good. Ocassionally you must soil your hands in order to achieve the greatest good for the greatest many. So goes life, and anyone who says otherwwise is probably selling something.

I think the main problem with morality in mankind is individuality. This has occurred to me before, but not as strongly as it did today during our discussion about conscience. Mankind is flawed, in that we are all different. While this is our greatest strength(allows us to develop science and specialize in our strong fields), it is also our greatest weakness. We can not agree on standards of anything, perfection is impossible. Morality will never be generalized in that perfect standard we need, and man will continue to argue over the nitty gritty right and wrong. This could be interpreted as we get different sides to the argument, and our morality is therefore flexible to allow us to do the right thing in certain situations, but this deliberation is costly, and makes morals more unwieldy in my opinion. It is like a diamond with too many faces, and in the end is bloated and no asthetic appeal. All these different takes on situations prevent action and provoke argument. In the end, though, who are we to judge what is right and what is wrong? We’re all human, intrinsically imperfect, and our morality is no more perfect than our person. The general ideas have evolved to the point of basic rules, like stealing is wrong, as well as killing, lieing, and so on, and society generally accepts these. Whats the point of arguing with it? It is the general opinion, the closest to an absolute standard, so I’ve decided to stop questioning it and just go with the flow

My Christmas this year involved several gifts that made me question what was right and wrong. For starters, I purchased a game called Braid using some gift money. Normally, a video game would not make me question what was right and what was wrong, but this one did. Braid is the story of Tim, who is questing to find a princess, and the game is ironically remniscent of the Mario games. However, when you get to the end of the game, you realize that the princess does not want to be rescued by you, and when you attempt to, she runs away. This made me stop for a second. Is it right for you to violate anothers rights out of love? I don’t believe so. If the princess does not want to be rescued, you should be able to respect that, after all, people do tend to know what is best for them, unless they are crazy, or very immature. The other moral dilemma I got for Christmas this year was in the form of the latest installment in my favorite book series, Dusk Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. Dusk Watch tackles the common theme in literature, Good and Evil. Once again, I found myself asking me, is good really all that different from evil? In Dusk Watch, Good and Evil do whats necessary to achieve what, in their opinion, is right. The best metaphor I can think of for these two powers is Communism(Good) vs. Capitalism(Evil). Now you may think that since capitalism is evil, they author actually thinks that, but again, they really are the same in the book, they just want different things. The “good”" guys want everyone to be happy, whereas the “evil” people wish for survival of the fittest. I personally side with evil myself. The good guys wish for an impossible goal, one that is blocked by human nature itself. Even though they live only for others, their powers come from happiness in other people. In order to survive, they must eat happiness, making others miserable, and is that really all that good? Evil lives off of suffering, alleviating others of their pain, that does not sound all that bad. Also, they aren’t your typical bad guys, they occasionally donate to others, and their “seflish” actions are better defined as self-interested, which as a calss we previously deemed “alright”. In the end, this Christmas made me question not only who I was as a person, but made me think about my actions. Should I really try to rescue that metaphorical princess, and, in the end, what is the difference between good and evil, aside from their goals?

When we were talking about women in Christianity, I had what you could call an epiphany of sorts. I realized that if Jesus, the founder of the whole religion Christianity, held “radical” beliefs that women were equal to men, then how did the religion revert back to the traditional belief that women were worse? Mr. Smart explained this with since it was the norm in Roman society to be patriarchal, then when Chritianity became Roman, it was became more Roman in itself. I thought this was ironic, in that they betrayed their messiah’s beliefs in certain aspects, simply to keep on living their lives the way they did. It would have been difficult, so I think they played a fun little trick on people. Most likely women still could not read, due to lack of education, so the rulers, not wanting to be usurped by some woman, interpreted the bible for them. They made the women trust them, and said Jesus kept with basic Roman Traditions. This allowed them to keep them down indefinitely, by not teaching them to read, and earning their trust. I guess their is truth to the saying knowledge is power. Its amazing to what length people will go to stop someone else from achieving sucess.

Today’s conversation was oddly surreal to me. I could not believe the odd assortment of Bible’s there were, ranging from the Cockney Bible to the “Porn Bible”. This in turn made me start to think about censorship in re printed versions of books. Obviously, some of these re-prints do nothing to censor the Bible, but what about others? If you take away the more graphic visuals of a the Bible, or any book for that matter, does it lose its meaning? I think it does. Without these, the visual of what may have happened would not be as strongly imprinted on the mind of those who read it. For example, in 1984, when they are interviewing the protagonist. Would the book effectively convey its meaning without it? Regardless of the torture, the scene oozed of satirical references to other governments. I think while some scenes are unpleasant, and make others squeamish are a necessary evil. And besides, what is the point? You would not hand a five year old a copy of 1984, nor would you show a fourteen year old A Clockwork Orange. Things should not be censored, cutting out parts of the story, they simply should not be given to those who its innappropriate for. And if its for the simple fact that it is offensive, don’t look at it, or exercise your right to be just as rude and offensive bakc at the makers of said offense

I realized today during class that a table-top game I play, Warhammer 40K, bears a remarkable resemblance to certain figures and events surrounding Christianity. It was funny to realize that like  the Inquisition actually ahppen,and aren’t just the imaginings of some pessimistic nerd coming up with a get rich quick scheme. For example, in 40K, there is an all-seeing organization that roots out heretics and aliens called the Inquisition. This also occured in the Medieval Times, with real inquisitors persecuting what they believed to be heretics. Also, The Crusades of the Catholic church bore a remarkable resemblance to the Black Crusades of Abbadon the Despoiler in 40K. Its funny to look at history and realize just how much influence it has on modern day entertainment. I also noticed elements of Zoroastrianism in a book I recently read, Nightwatch, and elements of Judaism in another element of 40K, the Space Marines.

I couldn’t help but notice during Fridays class that  we started to point out that Hitler was not evil, just delusional. I thought that was funny, since when you think about it, you can say that about anybody. Every “evil” figure in history was striving for what they thought was best. Maybe they thought self-preservation was best, like Stalin, or maybe they were self-indulgent, like Captain Ahab. All those people could be marked off as crazy, so what is evil really? I personally believe that evil is being aware that your actions are wrong and help no one but yourself, but do it anyway without guilt or hesitation. Everyone else is just crazy, or misinformed.

I was overjoyed to note that the so-called heroes of Judaism were remarkably human. I was glad to note that the characters were flawed, whether it was David’s promiscuity, or Moses’ overly humble nature. For once, in these stories, God was the only Super human., unlike the myths of other religions. This was not like the incredible strength of Hercules in Greek/Roman myths, or the miracles of Jesus Christ. Yes, Moses did have crazy moments like the Red Sea, but overall, his character was more rounded and flawed than the temprament of Jesus.