Re: virus: Religions,

Sodom (sodom@ma.ultranet.com)
Tue, 14 Apr 1998 17:34:38 -0400


Im just taking a shot in the dark here - to me it seems obvious that there are
only two principles at work here. vengence and envy. Justice is not about
justice, but about the emotion and desire for vengence. When something happens
bad to a person, they often want to strike out against the cause. If the cause
is a person, they usually want to cause suffering to that person. This is heard
everywhere, every day. Victims of rape want to castrate their rapists, or hope
their rapists will be raped in jail - that is vengence, but they call it
justice. The same goes with families of victims of murder or any other
percieved offense. People are calling out for vengence. Justice is the result
of putting limits on the type of vengence allowed, and in the United States,
they hand over the opportunity for vengence to the state.

Equity is not the result of wanting to help others, it is the result of wanting
what other have. It is the result of seeing some have it all and through the
threat of violence, forcing the havs to share with the havenots. The idea being
that if it happens enough, it limits the disparity between extreems and gives
the impression of equity. There can be no true equity. Equity exists because
the minority fears the majority.

As for Empathy, I feel that this VERY advanced state is so rare as to often be
confused with motivated self interest. I suppose the bounds can be tested
easily enough. If you had enough food for one week for 4 people. after that you
would have to go without indefinately, would you take food from yourself or
your children to feed an unknown stranger in need? Would you do it without
expecting something in return? I would like to think that i have a great deal
of empathy in that I would help another at great cost to myself, but I would
never harm my family to help another. There are limits to empathy in most cases

Sodom
a.k.a Bill Roh
Turn you love light on me

Eric Boyd wrote:

> hey,
>
> "C.A. Cook" <coreycook12@email.msn.com>
> > When the problem is presented this way, you begin to realize that
> > those spiritual questions of justice and equity seem more important
> > than the practical questions of politics and economics in which they
> > were embodied.
>
> I'm really not sure how the professor gets off saying that justice and
> equity are "spiritual" questions. Certainly one doesn't need to invoke any
> spirits to talk about them! And besides, I was under the impression that
> politics was the philosophy of how we should live together -- and that
> certainly includes some concept of justice! Perhaps they think that you
> need some kind of spirits to justify treating people with equity. I can't
> see why, though. Reciprocity (or EMPATHY) works for me.
>
> Maybe I should read some Marx.
>
> ERiC