There’s a revival of an old and especially anti-Humanistic tradition that many got an eyeful of during the recent Oscars:

Honor Culture Is Back. We Eradicated It for a Reason.
Ryan Grim
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/29/oscars-will-smith-duel-honor/

One thing your Mother might not want to tell her friend is: “Oh, don’t worry!  Me and Ol’ Nick are just like this! *Crosses Fingers*” 🤞😁

I sometimes tell that to customers whose total comes up to $6.66 or something added to that.  The reactions can be funny. 😁

I believe that clinical depression is the source of the idea of hell for the human race.  It’s just a dark and horrifying corner of the human mind.

If it were I…then I would do that (I have super strict limits with people in general and religion is definitely one of them). My mother is French Canadian, they are INSANELY polite (as you may know). They have a pretty hard time confronting people with personal beliefs and emotionally difficult confrontation. But I would imagine at…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
It is sad to imagine someone so tormented like that. She’s probably a caring person, if she is so concerned for the welfare of your mother.

Around here churches and preachers push this fear of hell constantly and tell their flock to go save their friends, family, everyone from the punishment of their god. It’s an age-old r…[Read more]

In…[Read more]

Your Mother sounds pretty convinced and firm in her non-belief.  I doubt she could be “blackmailed” into belief,  but her friend is a mess.

Did she know your Mom was a non-believer, then just out of nowhere get concerned that your Mom was going to Hell?  That would make no sense if she was firmly convinced in her beliefs.

Davis wrote:
She isn’t mentally ill. Depressed, perhaps. I wouldn’t blame someone who honestly believes in hell for being terrified of a friend burning for eternity. Any caring person who honestly believed in this shit would be terribly upset about it. Hell is the most grotesque religious concept ever devised. It is what makes Christianity and…

[Read more]

I think we just need to dig a bit deeper. Its not a dead issue, after all. If we just use our skulls a little more we can figure this out.
That’s the spirit. Maybe we have a ghost of a chance at resolving this yet.

Or we can just give up and bite the dust. Perhaps this discussion is on its last legs.

But most norms aren’t random

Uhhh. Yes. A lot of them are. I mean…come on Simon, in parts of the world they lob off pieces of little children’s genitals. Want a less extreme example? To be presentable in an office in western countries a man has to wear an uncomfortable pointless cloth noose around their neck and in Southern Europe a woman has t…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
I think we just need to dig a bit deeper. Its not a dead issue, after all. If we just use our skulls a little more we can figure this out.

That’s the spirit. Maybe we have a ghost of a chance at resolving this yet.

But most norms aren’t random, they have connection to things like benefit and harm, and respect.  This one is a case of respect.  Some people will dislike it, even if…[Read more]

It depends on the reason why they are upset.

I think in most cases, the reason why you are doing something, despite the fact that it upsets people…is more important than why someone gets upset about something. Pointlessly doing something that upsets someone, (whether they get upset for an understandable reason or a completely ridiculous…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:
Who’s going to mind? That is the crucial question.

It depends very much on the moral system that you are using.

I’m curious as to which other people could be involved, under different moral systems. I would have thought it’s a question of simple reality.

In reality, you likely won’t find out who does or doesn…[Read more]

I’m curious as to which other people could be involved, under different moral systems.  I would have thought it’s a question of simple reality.

Under some deontological systems, depending on how you frame your moral rules, consistency is much more important than “upsetting particular people in a particular situation”. Though again that enti…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
Who’s going to mind? That is the crucial question.

It depends very much on the moral system that you are using.

I’m curious as to which other people could be involved, under different moral systems.  I would have thought it’s a question of simple reality.

Davis wrote:
upsetting people alone is not enough of a reason to not do something.

It depends on the reason why they are upset.  We tend to see “disrespecting your dead” as a sacred no-go area, while “disrespecting your beliefs” we understand as fair game.

Who’s going to mind?  That is the crucial question.

It depends very much on the moral system that you are using. And depending on the moral system it can also depend on moral norms. But yeah…of the three sorts of people you are referring to…people picnicking on a seemingly strangers grave could upset all three of those kinds of pe…[Read more]

• the cemetary owners.
• the relatives of the deceased.
• onlookers.

In the last two cases, you could be accused of disrespecting the dead.  Is that what anybody wants?

They would likely get cited for trespassing doing something like that.

I’m not really looking for a legal answer here. There are all sorts of moral issues that are technically not illegal or not excluded by general rules or policies that can still be morally wrong. But in any case, I believe I can work out where you stand on the issue from your answers.

If you’re talking about teenagers acting stupid and drinking beer on a grave versus somebody just bringing a blanket in a basket of food to have some lunch, those are two completely different pictures don’t you think?

Well no. You said there’s ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with it. That’s a fairly categorical response. You then asked why it would be…[Read more]

So yes, you’ve changed too much at this point. With the additional conditions you’ve attached to the question, I don’t really find it an interesting question is all I’m saying.

This is the only way to approach the problem deontologically (and at this point we were discussing only my deontological answer…not my various other answers). In a deont…[Read more]

What would be wrong with having a picnic on somebody’s grave?

Ivy, imagine the worst happened and say, your son passed away (sorry to make you imagine the unimaginable). And then you go to visit the grave and you see a bunch of high school students and one of their pet dogs having a picnic on top of his little grave, eating sandwiches and d…[Read more]

Davis wrote:

I think you’ve now added enough new values to the scenario that this has substantially strayed from the original question.

No I don’t agree. How you approach any problem in deontological ethics is contingent on the laws you’ve formulated and how you apply them.

The original scenario was people picnicking on a grave. The next of kin s…[Read more]

Gravesites are real property

Yes totally. For some moral systems, the fact that the grave is private property is enough of a reason to brand the activity immoral.

I think you’ve now added enough new values to the scenario that this has substantially strayed from the original question.

No I don’t agree. How you approach any problem in deontological ethics is contingent on the laws you’ve formulated and how you apply them. I don’t see the value in formulating a law over “is it wrong to have a picnic on a s…[Read more]

There is another consideration to account for here: Gravesites are real property mixed with human labor, enclosed, and claimed from the state of Nature.

All real property is owned by someone, and ownership means the right of the owner to set the terms and conditions for the real property’s use and, above all, the right to…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:
I think the possibility of hurting or upsetting other people is significant enough to make an easily avoidable pointless activity one I wouldn’t do.

You’re talking about upsetting people (i.e., causing harm) for intangible rather than tangible reasons. Sometimes this seems acceptable, sometimes it doe…

[Read more]