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[Phys-L] Re: Divinely Inspired Behavior



At 12:47 AM 10/14/2005, Jack, you wrote:
Hi all-

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005, Brian Whatcott wrote:

Neither humans, nor any other social animals, owe their patterns
of behaviour to a divinely-inspired text.
Regards,
Jack


To be able to provide so definitive a view necessitates that one know
the well-springs of human behavior on the one hand, and on what
text is or is not divinely inspired, on the other.
A lawyer / physics teacher is hardly likely to be the first
person in whom one would expect to find this insight, prima facie.

But let me put the case more circumspectly: if there are people
who act as though they have heard word of a divine way of relating
to people, involving love over hate, care for the weak and the
social outcasts, who are adjured to be joyful, why wouldn't
Jack believe that was a distinctive pattern of behavior?


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!


No sir, that's not what I wrote. What I wrote was:

"James seems to make the common error that our accepted morality
stems from a Jewish and/or Christian religious tradition. I recommend
that he familiarize himself with the moral standards relied upon by
Aristotle in criticizing current theatrical works in his "Poetics."
Also, the 10 commandments, probably written down during the
Baylonian Captivity, owe a great deal to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi,
which date back to earlier than 2000 bce.
Neither humans, nor any other social animals, owe their patterns
of behaviour to a divinely-inspired text."

So the last paragraph summarizes the preceding two paragraphs.
The out-of-context quote of my concluding paragraph is misleading and
avoids the thrust of my argument.
Regards,
Jack


It is enough, in my view that you essentially disavow your earlier
summary statement, which was:

"Neither humans, nor any other social animals, owe their patterns
of behaviour to a divinely-inspired text"

Do you in fact disavow this summary? :-)

Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!