Noah unbelievably bad and no redeeming moments!

[moralist]

Brant writes:

But I don't want you to continue.

That's ok, Brant. Your answer of whether or not you have any children isn't necessary. I can continue without you.

My next question is: WHO is responsible for the lives of their own children?

If you have any children that would raise the likelihood of your knowing that YOU are personally responsible for the lives of your own children. And if you don't have any, it could excuse you for not knowing that parents are held morally accountable for the lives of their own children.

So the question of what did the babies do to deserve what they got is easily answered. Their rotten immoral parents inflicted their own evil upon them.

Greg

[tmj]

Was it the eldest child of every family , or the eldest son? Or the firstborn that was still a child or young beast?

And evil visitations on children reconcile with being all children of god in what manner?

[Brant Gaede]

But if a child were afflicted by their parents evil absolving them of moral responsibility when does the responsibility get turned on? Does the 16yo slicing, dicing and stabbing his fellow high school classmates get morally absolved for that because he's not yet 18 or 21 or 55? Or did going through puberty put him on the moral front burner?

Nathaniel Branden once pointed out--likely quite a few times--that more important than what happens to a child (implying in this culture) is how the child interprets the experience. You too easily let the kids off the hook.

--Brant

[moralist]

Brant writes:But if a child were afflicted by their parents evil absolving them of moral responsibility when does the responsibility get turned on?

When they are old enough to make moral decisions for themselves. In Judaism it's traditionally at the age of twelve when children are regarded as morally responsible adults. (In the US's secular leftist "self esteem" culture it's more like forty two... or even never! )

Does the 16yo slicing, dicing and stabbing his fellow high school classmates get morally absolved for that because he's not yet 18 or 21 or 55?

Under Mosaic law he would be put to death for robbing others of their lives. Under US law it's regarded as a "workplace accident" where the murderer lives a long life of "therapeutic rehabilitation".

Or did going through puberty put him on the moral front burner?

The onset of puberty is a physical symptom of emerging personal moral accountability for decent people.

Nathaniel Branden once pointed out--likely quite a few times--that more important than what happens to a child (implying in this culture) is how the child interprets the experience. You too easily let the kids off the hook

In the initial situation which spawned this discussion it was the deaths of the first born males of parents who do evil, so there would be no child still in this world to interpret what had happened to him. It's not really worth speculating on what dead people think when their bets have already been taken off the table.And anyone (Jew or Egyptian) who put lamb's blood on the lintel above their doorway the angel of death would pass by without touching their firstborn son. That's why they call it Passover. :wink:Greg

[moralist]

Tad writes:Was it the eldest child of every family , or the eldest son?Or the firstborn that was still a child or young beast?

It was the first born male child.

And evil visitations on children reconcile with being all children of god in what manner?

"No one begotten of God deliberately, knowingly, and habitually practices sin, for God’s nature remains permanently within him; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born of God. By this it is made clear who take their nature from God and are His children and who take their nature from the devil and are his children: no one who does not practice righteousness is of God; neither is anyone who does not love his brother."

[Francisco Ferrer]

So the question of what did the babies do to deserve what they got is easily answered. Their rotten immoral parents inflicted their own evil upon them.

Greg

Just as I thought: the evil action that the first born Egyptian babies committed was choosing wicked people as parents. Perhaps in the millennia since then the Tenth Plague has served as a good lesson for other babies: the selection of parents is not to be taken lightly. A little research ahead of time can save you a truckload of headaches later on.

I sometimes wonder why so many kids today pick drug addicts, criminals and child abusers for moms and dads. Well, let's hope it's just a passing fad.

And imagine all the controversy Obama could have saved himself if he hadn't picked a father from Kenya.

[moralist]

Frank writes:

Just as I thought: the evil action that the first born Egyptian babies committed was choosing wicked people as parents.

I'm impressed. You're an excellent spokesman for evil, Frank.

I don't believe anyone else could have made it's case any better than you just did. Most notably, you've succeeded in completely ignoring the existence of any personal moral responsibility for the evil that rotten parents inflict upon their own offspring. You believe there is a complete disconnect between the immoral behavior of parents and the consequences which affect their children. I hope you don't have any kids because you'd really f**k 'em up with that attitude of total abdication of personal moral responsibility.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

Frank writes:

Just as I thought: the evil action that the first born Egyptian babies committed was choosing wicked people as parents.

I'm impressed. You're an excellent spokesman for evil, Frank.

I don't believe anyone else could have made it's case any better than you just did. Most notably, you've succeeded in completely ignoring the existence of any personal moral responsibility for the evil that rotten parents inflict upon their own offspring. You believe there is a complete disconnect between the immoral behavior of parents and the consequences which affect their children.

Let's recap. In Post #29 you wrote, "The first assumption you made is that the evil people who were destroyed were actually good and did nothing to deserve what they got."

From that statement it follows that the children destroyed during the Tenth Plague were not "actually good people" but rather "did" something evil to deserve what they got.

In Post #43, you responded, "People who do evil inflict the consequences of their immoral actions upon their own offspring."

Now since it was the first born children who were destroyed by the Tenth Plague, not the parents of the first born, we are still left to wonder just what those little ones "did" to deserve what they got.

The babies must have done something evil, right? Otherwise, my assumption that they "did nothing to deserve what they got" would have been right all along.

So, if what the babies did wrong wasn't the choice of bad parents, what exactly was it?

I hope you don't have any kids because you'd really f**k 'em up with that attitude of total abdication of personal moral responsibility.

Greg

I know several people who have turned out to be decent, normal and healthy despite having evil parents. Now why would God allow that to happen? Doesn't that show a "complete disconnect between the immoral behavior of parents and the consequences which affect their children"?

Not at all a good example to set for the rest of the children in the world with evil parents.

[Brant Gaede]

Throwing logical consistency--or merely logic--at Greg is like throwing fire into the water, at least as far as Greg is concerned.

--Brant

[moralist]

Frank writes:

Let's recap. In Post #29 you wrote, "The first assumption you made is that the evil people who were destroyed were actually good and did nothing to deserve what they got."

From that statement it follows that the children destroyed during the Tenth Plague were not "actually good people" but rather "did" something evil to deserve what they got.

Wow... now I know you don't have any children. You can't even acknowledge that children experience the consequences of their parents actions. Also, you never refer to the evil that adults do, nor to the evil consequences set into motion by their own evil actions. Heck, you never even refer to adults as being personally responsible for the lives of their children.

Why do you have such a immorally irresponsible attitude?

However, I do have to admire your well honed skills at unjustly blaming God for the just and deserved consequences of peoples' own evil actions. That's why they call Satan "The Accuser". He excuses the actions of evil people by unjustly blaming God...

...and so do you.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

Frank writes:

Let's recap. In Post #29 you wrote, "The first assumption you made is that the evil people who were destroyed were actually good and did nothing to deserve what they got."

From that statement it follows that the children destroyed during the Tenth Plague were not "actually good people" but rather "did" something evil to deserve what they got.

Wow... now I know you don't have any children. You can't even acknowledge that children experience the consequences of their parents actions. Also, you never refer to the evil that adults do, nor to the evil consequences set into motion by their own evil actions. Heck, you never even refer to adults as being personally responsible for the lives of their children.

Whether or not I acknowledge "that children experience the consequences of their parents action," you still haven't said what the Egyptian babies themselves did to deserve death penalty. All you've done is switch the subject. Instead of showing why my "assumption . . . that the evil people who were destroyed were actually good and did nothing to deserve what they got" is wrong, you are focusing on something unrelated: my inability to raise children.

But as you may know, under Objectivism something does not cease to exist just because you refuse to think about it.

However, I do have to admire your well honed skills at unjustly blaming God for of peoples' own evil actions. That's why they call Satan "The Accuser". He excuses the actions of evil people by unjustly blaming God...

...and so do you.

Very well then. I will stop blaming God, if you will simply state which of the babies' "own evil actions" brought on "the just and deserved consequences" of their deaths on the first Passover night.

[Brant Gaede]

In a progressive chain of life events one can always stop to retrospectively consider that, yes, if X hadn't done Y respecting Z, shit wouldn't have happened to X while ignoring a thousand contradictory events. This can be done for most good results too. The generalization that in a relatively free society, as we have--cultural, intellectual, political, economic (it could be a lot worse)--what happens to our lives is what we do with them doesn't gainsay the ever present possibility of "acts of God." I don't know why Greg has such a felt need to go into all sorts of rationalizations to rend these acts of God out of human happenings beyond maintaining his anti-intellectual, anti-thinking, anti-knowing "Fortress Greg" by rending God (aka reality) out of the human equation. The rational way of being is to minimize the possibility of being a victim of acts of God while knowing that no matter how good you are at that Shit Happens cannot be avoided completely and that to be overly or pathologically concerned with avoided it one is trading one's existence for safety. That kind of safety, however, takes all the juice out of living and is de facto grave seeking. That is, there is absolute safety in death.

--Brant

[moralist]

Frank writes:

Whether or not I acknowledge "that children experience the consequences of their parents action," you still haven't said what the Egyptian babies themselves did to deserve death penalty.

Only someone who has never had children would not know that children can't act on their own moral accord because they aren't independent adults. Small kids are completely subject the consequences set into motion by their parents. You have to continually ignore this fact in order to excuse the evil done by the parents and to blame God for their evil.

All you've done is switch the subject. Instead of showing why my "assumption . . . that the evil people who were destroyed were actually good and did nothing to deserve what they got" is wrong, you are focusing on something unrelated: my inability to raise children.

It is totally related, because your attitude is a consequence of your not being a parent. You simply do not understand the reality that a child is a literally a consequence of the parents actions, so the parents are completely personally responsible for the lives of their offspring.

But as you may know, under Objectivism something does not cease to exist just because you refuse to think about it.

You really ought to apply that advice to your own attitude.

Very well then. I will stop blaming God

Well, that's the real point... you can't stop unjustly accusing God without realizing the truth that those babies were completely subject to the just and deserved consequences of the evil actions of their parents.

It's as obvious as a heroin addicted mother giving birth to a heroin addicted baby. But I understand that you choose not to make that connection, for that would mean placing moral responsibility on the mother... and personal moral responsibility does not exist in your view.

Well, this discussion has pretty much run its course, and it all boils down to this:

In your view, God is evil.

In my view, God is good.

Because each of our views are utterly irreconcilable, each spins into motion completely different sets of circumstances in each of our lives...

...both of which are completely deserved.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Isn't there a misunderstanding happening here? I mean a literal misunderstanding--a surface-level misunderstanding.

When Greg says people always get what they deserve, he is referring to people with a fully formed moral faculty (essentially adults). Either that's not clear to Francisco, or Francisco refuses to accept that's what he means.

But when Francisco asks about kids, I don't believe for a minute it's because he is excusing parents, attacking God, or anything of that nature. Either that's not clear to Greg, or Greg refuses to accept that's what he means.

In my own view, these are two good men.

The truly evil guys hurt people and take their stuff (to riff off the title of Matt Kibbe's new book).

I think Greg and Francisco are haggling over words and verbal framing, not over the concepts behind them.

MIchael

[Brant Gaede]

This discussion is really about the assumption of moral agency starting with the zero moral agency of a new born baby.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

But once moral agency is obtained Greg takes it one step too far by rending out completely life's happenstances. At least he's far better than those who eschew any moral agency whatsoever for whatever reasons.

So I could be his desirable neighbor or business partner but we would not be having private conversations delving deeply into his purported anti-intellectual philosophy. Here in OL's public space, however, I'll keep pointing out certain things and not give him implicit sanction by my silence of what I think is flat out wrong.

--Brant

Michael, you know I'm a baddie, and I know you are too, so when you say certain people are good guys I get badly suspicious (but can't tell anyone)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But once moral agency is obtained Greg takes it one step too far by rending out completely life's happenstances.

Brant,

That's another issue.

How that gets stretched to such a hostile and erroneous misunderstanding on a different point by good men, only different core storylines can explain.

Michael, you know I'm a baddie, and I know you are too, so when you say certain people are good guys I get badly suspicious

I'm trying to think of something clever to say as I'm spitting out the nails from the two-by-four I'm chewing on, but nothing comes to mind.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, that's easy: You're lying tyhrough your teeth; Only on odd days of the month; I live in two worlds--I thought you understood that; What's wrong with a bad guy calling a bad guy bad or a bad guy calling a good guy good. Etc.

--Brant

I take Pay Pal

[anthony]

Brant, Greg's brand of 'consequentialism' derived I guess from personal responsibility, is about two bridges too far- and one might say there's some hubris, foreign to rational selfishness, involved. However, put to the test I'm prone to make, of which sort of fellow citizens I'd want around me - too far, is far, far better than not far enough. (And that's the record for "fars" in a sentence).

[Brant Gaede]

Far Fair enough.

--Brant

[moralist]

Michael writes:

How that gets stretched to such a hostile and erroneous misunderstanding on a different point by good men, only different core storylines can explain.

You're onto something there, but it's not nearly as hostile as it might seem.

Frank and I actually agree completely on one fundamental point, in that I don't believe in his perverted view of God as a homicidal murderer any more than he does.

But beyond that, we each live by different moral standards. People who unjustly blame God for the results of the evil acts that people do, as he does, will also unjustly blame others. And he is adamant on that point. In my view, blaming God or others, is an abdication of personal moral responsibility for the just and deserved consequences of our own actions.

Greg

[tmj]

The god of the Hebrews rigged the game with heart hardening left and right. And then stated the reason for the punishments was to show future generations his power. Powerful and demanding of worship, but moral??

[moralist]

Tad writes:

The god of the Hebrews rigged the game with heart hardening left and right. And then stated the reason for the punishments was to show future generations his power. Powerful and demanding of worship, but moral??

Similar to Frank, you also share his unjust accusations of evil. When people are unhappy with their own life, they will angrily blame others because they feel that they are helpless innocent victims who were treated unfairly, so they will often focus their hate upon what they don't know.

It's just the urge to self harm turned outward.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

All unhappy people?

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

The post is to address previous comments by Michael Stuart Kelly, Brant Gaede and Moralist.

Moralist has written, “Small kids are completely subject to the consequences set in motion by their parents.”

If he means that foolish or wrongful actions by adults can harm kids, he will get no argument from me. For example, suppose a woman goes to meet her lover in a bar and leaves her two-year old son strapped in a car in the parking lot with the windows rolled up on a 90-degree day. Tragically and quickly, the boy dies.

Who would disagree that in this case a child was completely subject to the consequences set in motion by his parent? Who would disagree that the mother is morally and legally responsible for her son’s death?

Now let’s consider an alternate history. Suppose a woman kidnaps someone else’s baby girl and raises that child to serve as a slave in the woman’s household. Encouraged by regular beatings, the slave girl must daily scrub floors, tubs, toilets, and sinks, do laundry for a family of four, perform duties as a seamstress, and cultivate a two-acre garden.

This bondage continues for 15 years until one day the slave escapes and reports her captivity to the police.

Now suppose that the jury in this case finds the accused woman guilty and that the judge (stay with me now) decrees that punishment should be the execution of the kidnapper-slaveholder’s first born son, who is now six.

This is basically where we find ourselves now in this discussion. On the one hand, I argue that if the children of kidnappers and slaveholders are infants or toddlers and play no role in their parents’ criminal actions, executing the kids but not the parents would be an act of murder and a complete miscarriage of justice.

The case against punishing people for their parents' actions is derived from individualism, which "regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being." (Ayn Rand) Thus there is no such thing as collective guilt, the moral or legal transfer of individual responsibility for the crimes of one or a few men to a whole family or tribe or nation. There is no justice in the story of the Flood, or in treating all of Jewry as responsible for the death of Jesus, or in executing all men over 15 in the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in reprisal for the assassination of Nazi Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich.

It is one thing to say 1) that evil or negligent actions by parents will likely harm their children. It is quite a different matter to say 2) that if an adult commits a serious transgression against another person, the moral and legal consequence should be the death of the criminal’s child. One of the key differences is that in 2) the death of the child is performed by a third party who acts with the full intent of ending the child’s life and considers it an act of justice.

On the other hand, we have Moralist who argues that “people who do evil inflict the consequences of their immoral actions on their own offspring.” By this statement I take Moralist to mean that it is appropriate to punish a criminal by executing his son. However, it is hard to know Moralist’s exact position because instead of directly addressing question 2), Moralist keeps clinging to 1), which is quite a non-controversial opinion.

This is my attempt to summarize the debate in the most objective terms. I hope it does not amount to mere haggling over words.