What is it to be human? by Lorenzo

Препечатвам този пост на Lorenzo, тъй като напоследък имам тревожното усещане, че дебатът за христианските ценности, либрализма и  свободата е изпаднал в твърде абсурдни послания.  Например диктаторът Путин се явява във фалшивата поза на  защитник на христианските ценности и семейството. Независимо от фактите: алкохолизмът убива мъжете млади в Русия, около 60% от браковете се разпадат, а проблемът на самотните руски жени е придобил  застрашаващи размери. Другият пример е  свързан с нападките срещу германската толерантност и свободата да бъдеш това, което си избрал да бъдеш. Но, вървейки по улиците на германските градове, човек може да си помисли, че на огромното разнообразие от чужденци му харесва да живее в Германия.

Не искам да се разпростирам по темата за християнските ценности, но все пак ми се струва, че и божиите служители са твърде изкушени от парите, властта и удоволствията.

Просто никой не може да избяга от ограниченията на човешката природа. Толкова по-жалко е да наблюдаваме разцвета на всякакви видове дискриминация. 

Но, ето какво пише Lorenzo:

What is it to be human?

http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.de/2009/07/what-is-it-to-be-human.html

Abortion is an intractable issue because it is one of those "what does it mean to be human?" debates.

The war against human sexual diversity is all about "what does it mean to be human?" Catholic (and Orthodox) natural law theory defines people as heterosexual-by-nature so same-sex orientation is a "false form" of the human ("objectively disordered" is the current jargon term). So nothing they want in terms of their orientation counts or has any standing. The evangelicals buy into that through cherry-picking Leviticus and St Paul's use of natural law theory (almost certainly from Philo of Alexandria).

Of course, once you get into the game of "false forms" of the human,extermination is the natural endpoint.

The same groups notoriously define a fetus as human. So a fetus counts as a full human for moral purposes, but a same-sex oriented person does not.

The other link is all about sex. Since the One God is solitary, the One God is not sexual, so sex separates us from the divine EXCEPT in its creative aspect, so the only thing that justifies sex is its ability to create life and bind life-creators.

It is all very coherent, if you do not let things like the issue of forcing women to give birth and systematic cruelty towards your fellow humans bother you.

There is also a lot of effortless virtue involved. Heterosexuals deciding that same-sex activity is evil are not giving anything up. It gives a sense of virtue requiring no effort (apart from completely refusing to give the other person any credence).

Men deciding abortion is wrong are also not giving anything up. The situation with women is obviously, indeed notoriously, more complicated. Such as how motherhood fits into the sense of being a woman. But the thinkers who worked the details of the system out were all men. Typically, celibate, unmarried men.

Цитат на деня

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.” 

 Carl Sagan

Какво работят икономистите?

Франк Холенбек коментира този въпрос за  Mises Daily:

Most economists today, however, have sold themselves to the enemy. They work for government agencies such as the IMF, OECD, World Bank, central banks, or academic institutions where their research is heavily subsidized by government agencies. To succeed they have to “toe the line.” You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Today, these economists and bought-and-paid-for journalists inform us of the dangers of deflation and the risks of “ low-flation,” and how the printing press will protect us from this catastrophe. Yet there is no theoretical or empirical justification for this fear. On the contrary, a stable money supply would allow prices to better serve the critical function of allocating resources to where they are most needed. The growth resulting from stable money would normally be associated with rapidly falling prices as was the case during most of the nineteenth century.

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Не ценим парите повече или по-малко от тяхната стойност; те са добър слуга, но са лош господар.

Александър Дюма