Facebook Haters

Having read of the predicament of the English in the 18th century concerning the amount of poor children running through the streets stealing and begging for food, I have come to appreciate greatly the wisdom of Jonathan Swift in addressing the issue. His "Modest Proposal" in 1729 was to eat the offspring of those who are less fortunate as a delicacy, granting the dregs of society money and cleaning up the public walks for those who are more fortunate.

I wish to follow his example in purporting a solution to hate crimes on the Internet. There are some people out there who post ridiculous comments on their Facebook walls that are just outdated and bigoted. These posts include assertions of genuine beliefs that simply offend the general public because they are not politically correct.

We cannot have people posting thoughts and declarations that go against popular notions and common practices. The emotionally sensitive might have hurt feelings.

In fact, I would l like to thank those who on the Internet have placed themselves on a higher plane than those haters who speak their minds on touchy subjects, or make religious creeds known to everyone. These thought police help to make a non-contentious environment for all others on the Internet. It is likely that if they work hard enough they might be able to achieve that which George Orwell predicted in his book 1984 where even one's own children will turn in their parents for breathing out unintentional blasphemies against the government and currently upheld values in their sleep.

I myself have helped in this great cause at times but found that I do not have the time to constantly patrol the pinboards and Twitter feeds for comments that don't aline with my own. After long internal assessment I have found within myself a lack of courage to continue to attack others for what they believe and have only resorted to recounting what I myself believe.

My proposal is thus: if you ever see post with which you disagree,  please respond in the most inflammatory way conceivable without thinking through the long term consequences. Do not keep in mind the feelings or sentiments of the Facebook haters because they are no longer people. Obviously they always intend only harm and never base any of their perspectives on some sort of truth that they may have picked up through their life experience.

Please refrain from using good communicative skills, or doing any research or deep analysis before replying on your news feed. That would require effort and thought,  sometimes even a reflection of your worldview and might cause an annurism in your brain. Kind anecdotes, or rephrasing what you assume the person might be trying to portray (but has failed to do so) surely couldn't do even the slightest bit of good for internet communities. How outlandish!

These hateful people should also be shunned in public for the spiteful actions of speaking their mind that they think that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, or that abortion is wrong except in very critical circumstances, or that welfare should only be given to those who show work ethic and desires to amount to something in life instead of being a free handout for those who dont want to work. They who scourge the earth with such audacity to say what they think is right should be permanently silenced by none other than imprisonment and the removal of their fingers to never bear false witness about their sickly perceived evils of our culture again. I mean, look at the rude and intolerant nature of this next picture! How can people even say something so arrogant?!

Please join with me by sharing this blog post on your Facebook walls, pinboards and other social networking sites to inform the general population in the fastest means possible so that we can rid ourselves of free speech Nazis that aggravate us by refusing to conform to our wishes. Then maybe we can go back to posting about frivolous things like fashion, professional sports games and comedic performances on American Idol while ignoring important debates and denying the reality of pressing problems that plague our pages with pilfering profanity like traditional values. Cuss words, violence, and pushing pornographic images are much more suitable to our purpose of raising the next generation in peace and understanding. Try to promete those, too. I see that some of us have already caught on to that movement. Keep up the good work!

With an extreme attitude of sarcasm and a prayer that if you have read this you understand what is implied here,

Clark Lindsey, a recovering Facebook Police Expert

Disclaimer: there really are people out there who hate on others using social media. Those people are still human beings, but their actions should not be tolerated. Help put a stop to cyber bullying, but in a nice way. Though three lefts do, two wrongs do not make a right. Often those who harass others are insecure themselves, and as I have discussed in this post, it is possible to go too far on the offensive in the name of justice.

(Scroll down and read my other posts to learn more about my personal escapades and the mistakes of myself and others. Nobody is perfect, but we can all progress if we try! I am amenable to constructive criticism, so feel free to contact me with ideas. If they're messed up I simply won't respond and delete your comments, so please don't waste our mutual time with real hateful remarks. Sarcasm is appreciated to an extent.)

Moral Relativism: Evidence That God Exists

Having studied different moral theories of Kant, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, and others in my philosophy class, it has astounded me that these incredibly intelligent men differ by such large margins in defining right and wrong. Deontologists like Kant claim that exceptions can't be made on moral laws based on circumstances; if something is not moral in some circumstances it isn't ever moral. Consequentialists like Mill assert that the ends justify the means; sometimes actions that are immoral in some circumstances are moral if they bring about greater happiness when all is said and done.

Most compelling movies and TV shows will present these competing moral claims to make the viewer try to discern for his or her own self good from evil. Often the villain will purport that his actions are only to bring world peace or to grant the people freedom, but his method is to kill millions of innocents in the process. Other times it is the hero that decides to forego killing the villain because they believe that killing is always wrong,  but their mistake also costs the lives of many bystanders or friends as a consequence.

These moral dilemmas,  and the widely variant responses concerning what should be done, often create societal discord about politics and religion or the lack thereof. Our differences as human beings sometimes lead to war or governmental coups, family feuds or neighborhoods and church congregations shunning some members. Obviously humanity is divided over issues such as abortion, gay marriage, guns, animal rights, religion, stem cell research and myriad other topics, and that is only taking into account current national views on the matters,  let alone global views that have changed over time and vary by location. Just think about how chaotic it would be if every human being ever to exist were to sit in a council to decide right and wrong by unanimous vote.  It would never happen.

Despite this idea,  each person generally tries to do what is good, with many exceptions,  but even wicked people tend to justify their actions in side way shape or form. This notion of doing what is right comes from what in the LDS church is labeled as the "light of Christ", or the inner feelings that one has to follow God and be a good person, also known as a conscience to the secular world. Everyone has a conscience even if they chose not to listen to its advice. Even amongst all the arguing and bickering over right and wrong there are some pretty universal constants in the moral world. Lying for the sake of lying is not moral, nor is killing innocent people. Taking that which belongs to someone else is also immoral. However because there are exceptions of people not caring about others and placing personal survival as the number one priority, relying on humanity by itself to truly define right and wrong is not possible. This is partiality due to the fact that when other people place their moral emphasis in a different way it is a man's nature to claim that the other people have used flawed or corrupted logic to reach their conclusions.

Now,  part of God's nature is that He understands everything perfectly and makes no logical errors ever. Let's out it this way: God understands the workings of the entire universe of which mankind through its "science" hasn't even been able to indisputably outline the parameters. He knows a lot more than all of mankind put together and has an eternity of experience using that knowledge and dealing with humans via creation and seeing world's come and go. Granted that His knowledge is without fault, He had the right and ability to discern good from evil perfectly and completely. Man does not have that right,  never had had the right and honestly never will have the right. Therfore, God can instruct man on moral issues and by following His directions man can live a moral life.

Why do I claim that moral relativism evinces the existence of God? Because man does indeed affirm that good and evil exist, but cannot agree upon the line between the two. In order for morality to exist,  there must be a method to define it universally otherwise morality becomes nothing more than opinion, and if that's the case nothing is immoral because someone will always have a different opinion. Since morality and opinion do not equal each other, a party outside of humanity must dictate morality and immorality, and the party must comprehend every situation fully to make the judgement call. The only being ever conceived that can do so is God Himself.

I then approached my professor with this hypothesis and inquired to hear what rebuttals philosophers might give to this question.  His response is that atheists will claim that God doesn't exist, but that only means that atheists do not believe in morality, rather in opinion alone. If that is the case than those that believe in no God could potentially assert that they can do no wrong in their own eyes, which means that laws exist purely as social contracts and not to prevent evil from prevailing in society.

I believe in God for more than rationalizations, but sometimes it is nice to hear logic that supports my convictions. If all of this was worded strangely and hard to understand I will try to sum it up in one sentence. People believe in good and evil but can't agree on the parameters, making morality a matter of opinion. In order for pure morality to exist it would have to be universal and not change based on social acceptability as it tends to do with mankind. God can see all things clearly enough to be able to outline the distinct between right and wrong. Therfore if you believe in morality you believe in God or in the least a supreme being.

Standing Up While Sitting Down

I hold hope for the communicative skills of the rising generation after yesterday's Life and Ethics class discussion about abortion. This topic is heavily debated upon,  and I specifically have not yet posted on it for good reason. The only reason I have chosen to talk about it today is because I was able to see my very culturally diverse class go head to head without being at each other's throats. Opinions clearly differed even amongst those of the same religion, and, as usual, my opinion presented a lonely outlier for the group that certainly sparked people's interest and got some individuals who normally don't speak in class to repeatedly raise their hands to respond to my viewpoint. In fact,  the whole class turned from asking the professor questions to asking yours truly what I believed,  and, to their credit, even why I held my beliefs.

Normally when you hear about this kind of occurrence in a church magazine the writer will portray the discussion as a crucial missionary experience, which in a sense I guess it was, but the church has no official stance on abortion that I am aware of, so I kind of was on my own and representing me myself and I. So was everyone else,  and the battle was indeed for truth's sake. As students presented their individual arguments, other students would call them out for using logical fallacies  such as over generalizations or assumptions on what a person might believe if they belong to a particular faction of beliefs. Then the original student would respond to the refutation with a defense for their argument and the truth of the matter slowly sifted itself out. My standpoint in particular was attacked brutally, but not in an insulting manner. As was I, my questioners only sought to know what was right and what was wrong.

We had ask read three articles on the subject and they all failed to mention abstinence from sex as a preventative measure for abortion. Each in turn laid out why or why not the woman has a moral right to decide to end a potential human life because her financial circumstances are difficult or her mental health isn't where it should be in order to make it through the nine month pregnancy let alone motherhood. This mindset is bright about by the labeling of the two sides of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: either you believe in preserving life or maintaining free agency. This is not the case. Many people fall somewhere generally in the middle of the spectrum on this topic.

For instance, in my case I believe the woman does have a choice concerning how to treat her own body; different in my opinion however is that I believe that choice comes before having a child as opposed to after becoming pregnant. This view was partially accepted but everyone's concern was that people in general enjoy having sex, so they wondered if I thought sex was a bad thing. I appreciated this question because it gave room to eliminate misunderstanding. Very important in clear communication.

I don't believe that it is bad. I believe that it is something to take into consideration that the biological reason we can procreate is to have children. If the only motive for having sex is to have fun and experience enjoyment one must weigh out the risks, just as one must determine if skydiving or riding a roller coaster is worth the risk. Though safety precautions may be in place,  accidentes happen. I love roller coasters, but each time I get on one I have to accept the possible consequences of my decision.

Nobody liked the answer, but no one could refute it either. Morality comes down to the idea of setting priorities: which ideals must be upheld above all others? if physical pleasure is number one and avoiding having a baby is farther down the list, then go ahead and do what you will. If your priority is to have a career and never have children, then to play it safe you may be celibate your whole life. Seeing the question of abortion as such a matter of deciding whether or not to have unprotected sex and dealing with the results makes the debate rest only on cases of rape and severe health threats for the woman. A person always maybe free to choose whether or not to sacrifice his or her life for that of another.

Anyway that was my standpoint and when the class ended five or six students approached me to explain that they disagreed with me but that we had had a very good conversation concerning the matter and today heard things they had not considered before. They expressed to me their wishes not to offend me in anyway shape or form and that I was not a monster in their eyes for holding my ground. This exhibits a rather different human characteristic than what I have seen before when making a stand as my previous posts show. During the whole conversation it was blatant that emotions were high for everyone,  but no one insulted each other or set up strawman arguments. People admitted any flaws that they had in their argument, and I feel that the class grew wonderfully from having the conversation. We were all able to set one priority straight: respecting those around us and establishing healthy relationships (not a dominant and submissive relationship nor a constant battle for it to become such) heavily outweighs being right all the time.