Karl

I'm not.

That's rational. In the end subjectivism boils down to 'There is no reality and everything occurs within the framework of consciousness'. I decided around a year ago that it was an untenable philosophic dead end and was making me miserable, remote and isolated. Every so often reality showed up and smacked me around the head. My response was to practice with greater vehemence, but reality never gave up, so I did. I concluded that all these practices really do is to confirm that they aren't the way. As such they are a positive thing. Sometimes it's necessary to bang your head off a wall until you figure out that the pain cannot be dispelled by thought alone and stopping is infinitely easier.

Evil governments and refugees/immigrants.

Rational government ? The very notion is absurd completely absurd.

Cameron has made the point that we should take those only from the Syrian refugee camps on the border. These are the people who have neither the money, energy, or contacts to get out of the country. Then there are the persecuted Christian minorities that don't pose a threat to us.

Heh heh I certainly don't expect it, but if there was any justice that is what should happen. Merkel is worth $11.5m at last count. That would be a good start to her taking responsibility for her own charitable concerns.

Yes, the time is prior, but the current situation is that nothing is yet being done to stop the flow, despite the obvious problems. To continue stuffing the countries with immigrants is negligent and irresponsible. Those that are already here will need looking after, it should be done by charities only and not through the conventional welfare system. It is not 'our' emergency, it is those who wish to take on the responsibility that have to put their productivity where their mouths are. That includes ALL politicians that were in agreement, their personal wealth and salaries should be utilised to help out. One should not take the value of charitable effort if one does not actually contribute personally and accept that others may decide not to.m

Are you trying to figure it out ? Firstly: we, as individuals have absolutely no say in who comes into our country or, who settles as our neighbours. If everything was privatised then we could choose our neighbours, but as it is we cannot. Second: the government has been given the duty of keeping us safe and we are paying them to do that. This means not letting people into our country who have ideologies that do not compliment our own and therefore present a potential threat. Muslims are a religious sect. It's important to distinguish between pure racial intolerance and religious intolerance. Islam is a religious/political ideology high is based on the Muslim religion. Even those Muslims who don't support an Islamic state are tacitly supporting it by continuing to support the religion. This is unavoidable. Very few Germans were pure Nazi, but most philosophically supported them. Should we allow into our home country people who have this ideology ? My answer is to say No and to say that regardless of them being refugees or having skills we desperately require. The Muslims that currently reside here should be in no doubt that their religion is the key to jihadist violence. In no other religion is there a political element which, if the opportunity presented itself, would implement Islam across our country. That they refuse to believe this reality and that non Muslims refuse to accept it, is dangerous. It's naive. It's all this talk of tolerance, openess and diversity that has stripped us of the opportunity to object strenuously. Anyone attempting to air their ideas is shot down as 'racist' 'intolerant' ''small minded bigots'. The reason we have ended up this way is because subjectivism is dominant. We no longer have a politico Christian church-it has also slipped into the same relativism that everybody else has-but a few hundred years ago it would have been extremely vocal, maybe even violently so. We have fallen into error and we don't realise it. These days we have become tolerant of virtually everything, that is because we have thrown away the belief that individuals are able to think rationally, to be ethical and maintain moral values. Instead we are making excuses that things are not really anyone's fault. Apparently no one can help what they do. It's all down to genes, cultural background, environment, peer pressure, upbringing and every other excuse possible under the sun. It says we can't help ourselves and so we must tolerate acts and ideologies without end. We don't blame Muslims for the actions of ISIS because it isn't all Muslims that are acting violently, but, Muslims are men and men can think. They can rationally assess what they are supporting and make the choice to stop doing so. They are in a country which got rid of religious politics and have chosen to settle here. Yet they still insist on wearing the costumes and having sharia law courts here.That isn't acceptance of our countries values. It's the establishment of their own culture right here. Going back to my first point, had we a fully privatised country, we would be able to make the choice for ourselves. As it is we depend on the Government to discriminate and it has failed spectacularly in doing so.

If you were tolerant of homophobia then you would have no disagreement with it and therefore no requirement to be tolerant of it. You have already said you believe you have a 'right' to be served by a business and would bring down the force of the law on any business who refused to serve you. Therefore you are not tolerant of homophobia. Quite the opposite. You are intolerant when you expect others to be tolerant of you. Edit: aha you changed your post you little tinker ;-) A Government agency granting Government marriage licences under a Government law is not a liberty to refuse what it has made lawful. That would be pretty stupid for any of its agents to go against its own laws. That's a matter for the Government to sort out.

I already made the point that tolerance is needed due to disagreement. Tolerance as presented by people as 'values' common to some particular culture are using the word in a very different way. Tolerance-I am tolerant of someone's right to hold an opposing opinion and not of the opinion they hold. (Does that help to define the subtle difference ?) That is not how this is used by people who regard it as a value. Tolerance in our society is actually intolerance. If you run to an official and have your opinion pasted into law as your idea of the perfect society. This isn't 'tolerance'. To say that you, must by law, respect my ideas, is to be intolerant of others right to hold those ideas. I am tolerant of a homophobic's right to be homophobic, but I am not tolerant of homophobia. If I wish to air my ideas in public then I must accept that others will air opposing positions. If I wish to practice these ideas then I must accept that others might reject them. If those ideas are backed by force-as is the case with Government edict-then we have something entirely different. It means we accept that physical violence is acceptable for the support of ones ideas, then we have junked truth entirely. We have stopped disagreeing and arguing in order to discover error and have made 'might as right'. Accept that homosexuality/homophobia is right, because the law says it is and should you attempt to oppose that you will be punished.

In the UK its the law-as far as I know-that churches have to comply. Religion is just mysticism to me as you probably realise by now, but they should still be able to discriminate. In the UK civil marriage for same sex couples has been a right for some time-exactly as it should have always been.

As to your first-absolutely. If someone runs a private business it is no different to running ones own home. You may serve whoever you like. For instance, to make it more personal let's take a sex worker. Should a sex worker not be allowed to discriminate against a certain man, woman, group ? The sex worker runs a business so there is no difference. A Government entity is a different thing completely. I don't think the Government should have any involvement in anything but keeping the peace, upholding the law, administering justice and protecting the country. Governments run monopoly public services which give no choice to anyone to use an alternative. This is different to private businesses where competition means that discrimination could result in a Loss of profit. Gays should be free to marry if someone is prepared to marry them. It's not for the state to force churches to marry Gay people. The state should be entirely neutral in all respects and if a church wishes to set up its own gay marriage business then it should be absolutely free to do so, just as any church happy to marry gay people should do so unfettered. Women are free to pursue employment at whatever wage they can get. Employers should not be forced to employ women, or to pay them any particular rate. It's up to the woman to negotiate. The 'sitting on the back of the bus' rule was instituted by the Government and not private owners. It is always the Government that is involved in this form of force. Private companies were forced to seperate blacks from whites by the state. It wasn't the people who decreed this. Here actually is the problem. Once a person goes to a judge, politician or lawmaker and wants their version of the perfect world to become law, then the result is automatically to oppress the freedom of others. What is done can be undone by the same method. One day it is gay people forcing the issue, then tomorrow it will be homophobic maniacs that take the reins. That's the danger in this attitude. Force begets force. If you agree to use the sword today, so shall ye be cut down tomorrow. If you really do support tolerance, then you must accept that businesses have the right to refuse to serve you, then you are practising what you preach. If you take unearned values there is no place to hide from yourself.

The problem is-in Europe at least-the laws don't allow for the values they purport to.

Except that isn't how it is. It is not acceptable to be homophobic, sexist, racist or anything the Government deems is intolerance, which is, in fact the practice of Government intolerance towards those groups. This isn't live and let live. It is the practice of oppression of one group by another and is spun into a lie that this is 'tolerance'. It is Orwellian double speak in which intolerance is practised as tolerance. Where diversity is stamped out for homogeneity and openness is a privilege for one group but not another. If I cannot discriminate against whom so ever I like. If I cannot decide who I want to trade with, support or associate with then I am not free. I am in fact being discriminated against by the intolerant and those who preach diversity but fear it.

spectator huh ;-)

Well we haven't agreed on 'centralised decision making'. Governments began because we need a central authority which has a monopoly of force by agreement. The reason they have this is to protect the private property and person of each and every person that has agreed to Government being granted that authority. That's all. They are supposed to uphold the law and prevent the initiation of force, and to arbitrate where the law has been broken and apply justice for the injured party. The moment the Government imposes progressive taxation, welfare states, business regulation, anti discrimination laws, fixing prices, blanket surveillance, control of a monopoly fiat, refugees on the people, it has engaged in the initiation of force against its people. It has given up its mandate and turned into a tyranny. If people wish to come to a country to settle, to be a productive, independent, law abiding citizen then that's fine. It is quite another thing for the Government to force on the population a large group of refugees and then expect the population to pay for them. If voluntary, charitable organisations within a country wish to home, feed or otherwise help refugees to establish themselves as independent, law abiding, productive citizens, then that is fine. The people who voluntary subscribe to these charities do so for the specific reason of supporting refugees/homeless or whatever. No one is forced to pay in the sense that a 'country' must take in refugees as some form of duty/punishment. It's no more acceptable than me walking into your house and demanding to be sheltered, fed and looked after because I say it's your duty to do so and if that if you refuse, then you will be thrown in prison. It's not even our duty to do anything about refugees if our Governments perform their duty of defence and bomb flat an aggressor country. We gain nothing by defence and we have no duty to those people-innocent or not-who happen to live in that country.

No, I'm not against any of those things if the principle is restricted to personal, individual action. So, I'm tolerant of your beliefs even if I totally disagree with them, as long as your beliefs don't impinge on mine. Same goes for openness and diversity-both words that have little meaning anyway from the perspective of social interaction. People want privacy and prefer choice to forcing. We are in an open discussion forum with a specific set of rules. This entirely a voluntary transaction and an agreement to abide by those rules in what amounts to a private club. I am not forced to affirm your lifestyle, or you mine. As far as I'm concerned it's live and let live until one party engages in the application of force. An example of that is throwing someone off a building because of their sexual preferences. I don't call diversity a value, it's axiomatic to any natural system. That diversity is the same diversity that bids everyone the right to think and practice whatever they want as long as it doesn't aggress in some way against others. All that is required for any group of people is a set of defined, rational rules and an arbitrator with the monopoly of force. We can chuck faux values like tolerance, diversity and openness away. As far as values go I may take and keep any value that I earn without imposing my ethics, values, lifestyle on you. It should not concern you if I agree with your lifestyle or not. You do not live by my behest nor I live by yours. Our individual lifestyles are private (as opposed to open), our lifestyles are axiomatically different (diverse) and we should be free to disagree with what each other does without either of us engaging in aggression against the other (tolerance). If you come onto my property and force me to accept your practices, or If I come onto your property and force you to cease your practices, then this is simply aggression. It is intolerance, closed minded tyranny and the complete antithesis of diversity. Just for reference I'm not a homophobe, but that entirely beside the point. I accept that there are homophobes and that they have a right to be homophobes, justvas there are homosexuals and they have a right to be homosexuals. Building greater understanding is not done by force of arms, but by discussion in which neither party has the right to use force to get its way.

You are picking and choosing what you think these words mean. If these words simply mean anything anyone thinks they mean, then they have no value at all. Murder might as well be mercy, stealing is charity, violence is love. If we cannot establish a fixed definition we shouldn't use the words at all. This is Orwellian double think. To be open does not mean to be infinitely flexible of every idea. In effect openness and tolerance are in complete contradiction. If someone is open about their own disagreement with the ideas of another, then they are considered 'intolerant' of those ideas. To be open minded does not imply one should throw away ones own values, rationality, principles and ethics and accept anything at all. Disagreement is a part of life. That's what needs embracing. Tolerance is to allow disagreement without coming to blows. Justice is that which is applied to those who initiates force against another because they peacefully, but vehemently disagree.

Let's look at one aspect and discover what is actually meant by the term 'tolerance'. How is it used and what does it apply: You said that you believe tolerance is the acceptance of other people's rights to hold differing views to your own. I would agree. However, let's look at what it actually means in practice. Take a group such as homosexuals who demand 'tolerance'. They are not asking for tolerance at all, they are asking for an affirmation of their lifestyles and by doing so they are practising an intolerance of anybody else's right to disagree with their lifestyle. We end up with a ridiculous situation in which tolerance is really intolerance. If there were no disagreements at all then there would be no requirement for tolerance in the first place. What we have done is create a casualty of truth. We have substituted relativism for rationality and to allow 'error' to become a floating subjective concept. There is no way to draw a line. What is tolerance for one group is intolerance of another. So, tolerance isn't a value precisely because it is subjective in that respect. Ones right to hold ones ideas does not require anything at all. If this is what you mean by tolerance then I'm all for it. Disagreement demands tolerance on both sides. This is not a value in any sense, it is a voluntary transaction that must occur without the initiation of force on either side of that disagreement. Tolerance is therefore not the right of homosexuals to demand that others affirm their lifestyles or be punished. That is clearly intolerance of the right for the other side to disagree. It is the homosexuals that have initiated force. Similarly, previously it was those that disagreed with homosexuality that outlawed it who were intolerant of it and wanted those they disagreed with to be punished. If we look around we see that Europe is not practising tolerance at all. It is practising relativism. 'What is right for you is not necessarily right for me'. This is to discard truth and make tolerance whatever anyone says it is. Tolerance is the right to hold an opposing view and not to be the subject of force to make them act contrary to that view. This applies equally to both sides of any disagreement.

I think it might be commercially driven rather than egalitarian values. Those values are false and the result is false action. Have you tried to define: openness, tolerance, diversity as they apply to yourself. Don't you really value privacy, justice and stability ? Openess is the absence of any resistance to state in any aspect including ideas and personal privacy. Tolerance is that which the state decrees you must accept no matter how bizarre. Diversity is multiculturalism as being good for the sake of itself. One cannot have Laissez Faire moral values. Values are fixed not flexible. Being open, is to hold no moral values as sacrosanct; being tolerant is to accept no moral values of justice; To see diversity as a moral value means the acceptance of the diverse for being the diverse, to have no discretion in value. These aren't values, they are anti-values. If I believed in a God, then these would be the values of the Devil.

Of course the 'country' did not let them in.(love these equivocations). Governments let them in and the Government earns no money itself, it sponges off its producers and then expects the producers to pay for the Goverments false altruism. Funny how easy it is to spend other people's money and do great charitable works with the proceeds. Simultaneously the cost of suing the Government falls on the producers. The cost of the war in the Middle East falls on the producers. Not to forget the cost of all the extra Policing, integration, sex attacks, crime and its attendant costs all falls on the producers. All the producers did was to vote in an election in which they were powerless to decide any issues and then they paid for all the costs.

As I Said, it didn't. The author of the four Cardinal virtues was a combination of Plato and Socrates. Neo Platonism arose in the Judao Christian religious cult when those original virtues were added to another three under Aquinas to make seven. Virtue is a Greek word.

Plato, Augustine and Aquinas I believe.

Thought I might add this as an alternative since my full and frank discussion on another thread: copyright the Atlas Society. This guy says it better than I ever could. The virtues of Objectivism, then, define principles of action that lead to the achievement of objective values, considered in the full context of human life. The key principle of the Objectivist ethics is rationality , as against mysticism and whim. The ethics is a code of benevolence and justice toward other people: holding evil-doers to account for their vices, but treating rational and productive people with good will and generosity. It entails integrity , allowing no breach between our principles and our actions. A rational being practices honesty , loving the truth more than deception; and he lives first-hand, on the basis of his own judgment and effort, so independence is a virtue. The Objectivist ethics places industry and productivity in one's chosen work at the center of life's concerns. It is the code of a person who holds his head up with pride , in an objective appreciation of his merits and in aspiration to improvement in the future. Traditional ethics contrast the image of man as an animal with the ideal of man as an otherworldly monk. Man is by nature a ravening beast, on this view, and he must be taught self-denial and self-sacrifice to be angelic and meek. Objectivism holds that man lives best as a trader, acting rationally for his own sake and dealing with others by exchanging value for value. Traditional ethics extol courage in the face of death as a virtue; Objectivism counsels integrity in the long-term pursuit of happiness. Traditional ethics extol charity as the mark of nobility; Objectivism extols productive achievement, because no one exists merely for the sake of others. It is an ethic for those who want all life has to offer, consistently, over the full course of life.

Catholic.