The Death Penalty

I was purely making the distinction on it's legal basis.. killing is the act.. murder is the premeditated act...

The point I was making is that I firmly believe that everyone.. given the right set of circumstances is capable of premeditated killing.. ie murder. I make no distinction between the two examples you gave... IMO... all killing is murder including those killings that come about due to self-preservation whilst actually being directly threatened.. (ie self defence - such an act is still a conscious decision to kill).. the only exceptions are those which occur because of an unfortunate and unintentional set of circumstances. It makes no difference if the premeditation was five months or five hundreds of a second before the act, if the intent is there.

As for segregation for the protection of the rest of society.. well that is exactly what prison is for.. Why should we pay?.. because:

a) life is sacrosanct and no one has the right to remove it, except the individual themselves.
b) Society is inextricably linked with the actions of it's members. The two can never be divorced from each other... an individuals actions are a result of the set of circumstances that lead them to those actions, their mental state and "moral" standpoint. All of which are influenced by the society they live in.


I don't belive morality is a religious concept. Believing in the sanctity of life has nothing to do with the belief in god.

GTM

 

For those that don't subscribe to the transcendental hopes that console the patrons at the inn of Christianity, perhaps it could be argued that they are more worthy of canonisation than any contemporaneous luminaries of the church, in light of an equivalent conformism to the conventional standards of contemporary and traditional moral conduct, without the incentive of the views from the first floor penthouse overlooking the still, milky lake of blessed eternity. I am reliably informed that for non-believers, the seat in the fiery basement of a squalid tenement is secure. Therefore, when the soles of your feet are already on fire, why is all not permitted, in a fury of hedonism....

.....like breaking the 'law' for kicks, and then being executed for it, in the name of........

What is the basis of justice if one does not believe in God?.........

 

cookiemonster,
thanks for taking my comment completely out of context. religious moral codes and contemporary atheistic moral codes are just as arbitrary as one another. doing what makes you feel good as a personal moral compass is perhaps a better way of living than any other (as long as it;s within the laws of your society).

perhaps it says more about a person that they find pleasure in hurting others rather than helping others. it also may say somethign about you that the first thing you thought of when 'do as you will' (the latter half of which is 'but let it harm none') was mentioned was something negative.

cheers


julian

 

Cookie, your board I can tell, time to leave this 'mundane' dwelling place and lock on to higher mental stimulas this the mana forum, be still yound mind and listen for the calling of the 'Cleaner Clang' WM

 

Julian,

I'm not sure how i took your comment out of context. Do you not think that if morality is arbitrary, then so are the appetites of the same individuals which engendered the concept. Which leads to an arbitrary individual, acting upon the impulses of his arbitrary whims, guided only by the compass of his own arbitrary distilled morality. I am merely trying to question the psychology of an individual who has nothing upon which to base any moral tenets. Laws are as arbitrary as morals. So why the emphasis upon confinement of expression within the contrived boundaries of a systemised and codified concoction of morality, ethics, economy and prejudice, all arbitrarily enacted in the random geographical lottery that is your place of birth and living environment.

Much of what i say is hyperbole. I am merely asking questions Jules - none of them to my knowledge original either - i am guilty as charged on the count of plagerism, occasional sophistry and a few farm yard tales just to veneer the surface. This approach has never directly harmed anybody. Its the conveyors of solutions and 'truth' which ultimately do harm. In life, i see problems, contradictions, hypocrisies, anger, hatred, frustration, tenderness, beauty, and yet more problems.

It has been ventured that the solution to the problem, is to be seen in the disappearence of the problem. Personally, this is something which i cannot subscribe to without a sudden tranmutation into a child. I don't look for solutions to problems, i just enumerate and dissect the problems, as a pleasurable and arbitrary means of passing the time. Unfortunately, for many of us, it causes us too much pain to do so.

If i see a person taking pleasure in hurting others, i perceive that a person is taking pleasure in hurting others. I make no further judgement. Judgement is reserved for those with a moral code.
If my preliminary response to a statement of 'do as you will', is one judged to be negative, that is beyond my jurisdiction. I am sceptical, but not a cynic. Asking questions never killed anyone, especially as the progenitor is an absolute pacifist. A blatant contradiction and absudity, in the light of a non-franchised morality as i have said previously. I don't believe freedom and society are compatible. I often traverse the bridge between the two.

'...let it harm none' is unfortunately a delusion. I can be accused again of being pedantic, but i fail to see the grandeur in compromise and contradiction....

If i kill myself i am harming others. There is no action, outside of the realms of a free and indifferent universe that does not have implications for another living being, which are then open to judgement from the tome of morality.


Doing 'what makes me feel good', or 'what is at least possible', involves passing the time enacting a comedy whilst asking a few questions en route, with least infringement upon anyone else. For me that is the only way of living. Mainly i soliloquize - for that is less harmful still.

regards

 

I may traverse the virtual stairwells upon your advice. I have a long stretch of sitting doing little and getting paid for it ahead, and i apologise in advance to the encumbants of this place, for my arbitrary exclamations. Would it be wrong to take pleasure in addressing the inhabitants of the Mana galaxy, and fracturing surreptitiously their moral code with a spliced jam donut and a few power mods, before escaping on a wave of green effervescence, and depleted impedence.

 

Yep go on. It's a very quiet place.

 

Tis true, oh seeker of cerebral nurishment, the gray matter content of that holyest of 'ferrite worshiping centres'. The incomprehensible interchanges of electron fever is but a wonderious sight to behold only in a few places in this solar system can such 'beauty' turely have thine eyes cast upon it.
However a word of caution, fair traveller, andornment of a 'Armor of bodily person' is advised, as 'Dark forces' stalk such a place and many a 'Blade' has been flashed in pursuit of interior decor mis givings . Good journey stout fellow.

 

cookiemonster,
it would be possible to live your life so that you were morally blameless however it would as you point out be very difficult. you've highlighted the fact that in order to function in this society as what is regarded as a normal individual it is necessary to become a partial sociopath and ignore the plight of others. perhaps this fact goes some way to explain the state the world is in.

as to your taking my quote out of context. what i was saying is that it's difficult to live in a perfect moral vacuum (if that was desirable anyway) and that those involved in your social and moral upbringing have just as much a part to play as your basic predisposition towards others. nature or nurture? i say both!

asking questions is indeed a laudable and noble past time, as is answering them (to the best of your ability) and arguing about them. however just as a point of pedantism saying that no-one has ever died from asking questions is not true. certain question askers during the dark days of the middle ages and the inquisition were killed for asking the 'wrong' questions. And if we are to take the new testament as somewhat hisorically correct jesus was nailed to some wood for asking some questions too.

cheers


julian

 

I envisiged that i had potentially flown too close to forging a facet of absolute knowledge here. I think i said 'This approach has never directly harmed anybody', then at the end i concluded with - 'Mainly i soliloquize - for that is less harmful still.' I was already backtracking before i was derailed. The reason being, that i have witnessed the effects upon the foundations of beauty that questioning can have. Fine hairline cracks appear in the youthful innocence when stability and security are brought into doubt. The effect can be repulsive, and i neither wish to be the messenger nor the spectator in such an endeavour. I cannot dismiss the contradictions even in the bosom of beauty herself, but i would rather die in the face of innocence than in a pile of shattered rubble, where there are still no victors and questions continue to go unanswered and unacknowledged. Indeed, there is sometimes not even a language to communicate with, even if one wishes to breach the barricades and crush everything in the pursuit of unification. As Wittgenstein said 'If a lion could talk, we would not understand it'.
Of course, maybe there are no contradictions, and beauty is pure and absolute. But i can't dismember my own weathered construction.
Ergo, i deem it less destructive to soliloquize - which is effectively only a formal communication of one soul with itself, instead of a casual, delusional communication with ones circumambient air. This path invariably leads to complete absurdity, which needs either a stong or weak back bone to deal with it, depending on how you view it. I withdraw at the gates, and top up my reserves from the lakes of humanity and nothingness in equal measure, to maintain a reasonable centre of gravity - without which there is no control, and anything is possible.

sorry.......anyway, i could cope with carrying my own cross, which we are all invariably doing anyhow. I was excluding the consequences to oneself, which i agree, given a suitable audience, are potentially life extinguishing. It is primarily any affliction upon others that i endeavour to avoid, with futility nevertheless.

Apologies,
I have a lot of time

 

You are right.

Innocence dies from asking questons.

 

so if i am to understand you correctly your desire is to have a perfectly balanced life effecting no-one either positively opr negatively and leaving nothing of yourself behind. i find this a very disturbing idea, and quite a joyless one too. is it a fear of cracking the facade and finding out what is behind it that stops you from this or is the fact that you believe that what is behind the facade is horrible?
surely the very act of soliloquising in a public arena is chipping away at the beautiful face and starting to reveal the ugliness underneath. what is that ugliness? in my opinion it is that people are nothing more than animals. their instincts are selfish and the idea of absolute morality is a sham. it is the ability to act selflessly and supress these instincts and to forge a moral code that enables people to live side by side that makes the human animal a wonderful thing. of course this outlook has to be balanced against the reality of life. there is no such thing as a free lunch and your life must be by necessity be built on the deaths of other living organisms be they flora or fauna. it is possible to make this necessity less unpalatable either by ignoring it and risking becomming desensitised to greater horrors or you can embrace the fact and make sure that those other organisms you live off are treated as humanely as possible in both life and death.

damn you;ve got me at it now!

cheers


julian

 

And all because the Lady wanted.............................Milk Tray :JOEL:

 

There is a big difference between Jews and Killers, unless your implying otherwise!?

 

My desire in theory would be to affect nobody negatively, but always positively. I would also enjoy being Robinson Crusoe, and having a pet polar bear. As it is, i would indulge in the premise that i affect those individuals in my environs with sufficient positivity, and negligible negativity. Absolute indifference can lead to zero antagonism (it can also lead to zero tolerence - as anything is permitted). I am highly indifferent, but as a human being i am intrinsically linked to certain other beings, to whom i am not actually entirely indifferent. My centre of gravity resides frimly in the former however, and as such, i generally feel a desire to contribute positively to those with whom i interact, with least negativity, and the rest i am ambivalent. This circle is transient - there are no fixed meditations nor parameters of thought or action. If a negative action is inflicted upon an individual whom i am not indifferent to, i would still invariably be indifferent to the consequences, if they were unavoidable, and i was not in a physical position to alter the outcome, even with the sacrifice of my own existence. I would suffer loss nevertheless at the outcome, as a human animal, but i can never envisage a concerted negative action, at least in so far as i perceive it, and so would not reciprocate in the name of a contrived justice, to which i am intrinsically indifferent. Freedom exists - but it invariably forces a position of indifference to some extent. It can also be lonely and futile. A place where freedom is useless. I don't concertedly reason a way to live, predominately i act instinctively. Though i rarely act at all. I spectate. One can only act with integrity, if one can understand the actors and the stage. I am thrown into confusion at the absurdity of my own existence, and invariably find it incoherent to be creative. I just try to live within the confines of moderation with respect to my human desires. But at the same time am relatively inert. There is no place for spectators in this world, yet i am incapable of action. There are two many inherent contradictions. For one who does not create, invariably little of oneself is left behind. I do not meditate upon my own existence per se, and refrain from predicting the future, or even deliberating on its enigma. As far as is possible, in a world of strange construction, futile progressive energy, hypocrisy, and a vain misguided hope for the marriage of the finite with infinity, i wash with the tides, blend with my environment, but am outside of it as well. I find existence disturbing and joyless. If one cannot breath it is difficult to endeavour to feel joy in a strange world. I feel pleasure, but little joy. I feel pain, but i feel no fear at death in isolation. I am tangible, yet a myth. Instinctive, yet reasoning. This is all highly boring for the purveyors of history. Our perceived shared condition is not an original meditation. To the extent that i do act, as a human animal, i act instinctively. But the burden of reason, occasionally hollars from the black side streets, of a town which is not on the map. I struggle to answer these questions either about myself or anything outside of me. I don't know the answers. I am unable to dispel the questions. Hence all is left is to eat when one is hungry. I neither destory nor create. Just massage what exists.

There is no fear, other than that instilled through the pores, and an unwillingness for pain, as i experience it. The stage is horrible, and on it, i don't understand how to perform. There is no fear here, just confusion and absurdity. There are elements of beauty within the matrix, but these are potentially contrived anyhow, and invariably as i see it, are either an affliction of nature or of innocence. Beauty and passion are not facilitators to action per se, but are remedies for the indifferent, and exert a willingness to positive influence. The ugliness is merely the absence of innocence. Weakness occasionally figures as a chisel at the surface of beauty. A slave to it, and a yearning to be part of it. A contradiction, which cannot be amalgamated. I don't wish to ponder impondrables here, but you have coerced me fair traveller, and i feel compelled to reciprocate.

Well then i am probably like a siberian tiger. A lone predator, who eats when hungry, and is idle most of the time, due to the incapacitating cold. The icy climes are as indifferent to the feline creature, as it is to its environment, outside of the realms of self preservation. He accepts visitors, which presents a pleasurable distraction, but does not encourage it, and few if any remain. Most cats prefer it warm and cosy. They rarely venture to the frosty landscapes. Those that do visit, can summon him with beauty to the warmer climes, but invariably, to preserve that idea of beauty he must forgoe it, but merely facilitate its perpetuation where possible, as a sole act of justification, however contradictory and unintelligible. The landscape looks much the same in all directions. The terrain is perilous as far as the eye can see. He will die here, but not tragically. He has seen the future with lucidity, but does not predict it nor meditate upon it. He communicates with limited intelligibility, for the matrix is an enigma, and cannot be formatted. He is a modest creature with simple means, who enjoys the discourses of thinking travellers through the void. He is now streaming into codshite.............Jules mon ami....i'm crap at questions mate - i know very little if anything - i take none of this seriously, as i never venture far from the stable. I imbibe the passions of others instead. I just wake up and eat at meal times........this dialogue ends in infinity......


regards

In a world of degrees of divergence from 'normality', the spine of the finite, my digital profile would describe me as a melancholy optimist. Definitely maybe.

Cookiemonster occasionally emerges in the Street to participate in Monsterpiece Theatre. In the street roams a Snuffleupagus, which is fokking scary. I share the same birthday as Big Bird - ouch. I like to just eat cookies.

'Accept all things in good part, just as they seem, just as they taste, day by day. The rest is beyond thy knowledge'
Ecclesiastes

 

A tad disappointed in the partial physdo moral enlightment section a feeling of 'lack of encompassing physic' is plainly evident in the brief passages above, maybe a 'wandering from path' was occuring at the time inscripition, and above all the most blatant of open wounds that wasn't closed
Everthing thing in the universe can be 'Formatted' at any pont, ceasing on the merest of human transients and enveloping them into repost thus stated, is great miscarriage of evolutional travesity and one of our main codes of passage
I'm afaraid the Milk tray has been withdrawn.

 

That would certainly explain why people have stopped using f**king signals when driving :laser:

 

LMFAO...

:ffrc: :ffrc: :ffrc: :ffrc:

cheers


julian

 

I expect nothing less. I feel you are being too generous enlightened meister.

'For doubting pleases me as much as knowing.'
Dante

Yes, scepticism is a lazy man's consolation, since it shows the ignorant to be as wise as the reputed men of learning. Fok it - i'm lazy, and the suger in the chocolate rots my teeth. I bask as a sewer rat.

indeed, i evaded the gauntlet. The 'path' is far on the horizon, of the same soil, but rife with whores. The whores witness a lesser whore on their respective horizon. They are all wandering aimlessly for some pimp. The pay is better on the path, but i don't understand why.

I had a feeling it might. No matter. I gave up chocolates a long time ago. I could never be fokked to earn them. I doubt i had the capability.


WM, sir, i need to get back to the phantom nebula imminently to collect my prescription, or i fear i may be lost in this place indefinitely. Any chance of a lift?

 

Maybe if we had the necessary humility to move in the same vehicles on uniform rails without the necessity for signalling, it would prevent clashes of civilisations. But this would demand a curtailment of expression and much sought after individuality, and a likewise relinquishment of power. I'm not sure there would be many willing to sacrifice their consolations to walk this path.