Biblical Israel Reaches Out to Pres. Bush

[I am David]

Well then, you and I simply differ in our opinion of rightful ownership. I believe that there is "stature of limitation" on claiming property that was not claimed for a long time. I personally put the line at 100 years.

I believe there is no moral justification for claiming any property after 2,000 years, conviniently ignoring generations upon generations of residents. I also believe that there is no legal justification as well: If a Jew would present an ancient legal note from his ancestors that describes a piece of land as the family property, it will not be accepted by the court and will not be sufficient cause for evicting the current residents. The reason will be stature of limitation.

The fact that you base your argument on your personal opinion of what is enough time to 'moralize' a peoples ownership of a land should illustrate your overall weakness in this argument. You say 'I believe there is no moral justification for claiming any property after 2,000 years', and 'I personally put the line at 100 years.' Yes, you personally put it at 100 years. Who the heck cares what you personally would put the number of years at? I personally would put the number of minutes of driving a car that is not ones own that it would take to become yours at 30 minutes, so that I could claim this nice car that I am borrowing is simply mine because I have used it for the amount of minutes that I personal think is enough to claim its mine. But just because I personally think that 30 minutes is enough time, does not mean that the car is morally mine. Is it? I mean I believe that 30 minutes is enough for that car to be mine, just as much as you believe that 100 years is enough to erase any prior claim to a peice land. So really, this car, that I just borrowed, is mine! Because I had it for 30 minutes and my opinion is that 30 minutes is all that it takes! Give me a break. That is pathetic.

You say 100 years is enough eh? 100 years is nothing. I say it needs to be 5000 years. Does that make me right? Does that make you wrong? But you say its 100. Does that make me wrong? No, it is neither, simply because this is not the determining factor, not an individuals opinion of what is enough time. The determining factor is the descendents of the Jews who were expelled did not have a home, were in foreign lands being persecuted, all the while a bunch of Arabs decided they wanted a change of scene and took land that was not theirs, and was still someone elses. This is immoral, wether or not the Arabs thought it was. What they thought does not matter, the act was still immoral. All the subjectivness in the world can not change that it was immoral. And no, 100 years is not enough to erase the Jews claim to the land, as they were/are still around.

You are wrong about the Death penalty and abortions. The death penalty is either legal or illegal in some countries, meaning the legistlative made an overall decision regardong the issue, without getting into specific cases. Same goes for abortions. It is either legal or not.

What am I wrong about concerning this? Are you trying to say that Abortion is one single definition, that there are not, first, second, and third trimister abortions? Are you trying to say that a first trimister abortion is not different than a third trimister abortion, enough that it can be considered a different situation? Answer the question. Are you trying to say, that just because a country's laws have one law for all abortion, that a first trimister abortion is not different than a third trimister abortion? No I am not wrong. You are.

Who is to say if the death penalty should be used or forbidden? Who is to say if abortions should be used or not? Who is the authority on moral issues? the court? the government? Different judges and Parliament members hold different opinions on moral issues. Of course they do, they're human beings.

Who is to say if the death penalty should be used or forbidden? At least someone who understands everthing about it, and knows what is truethfully right or wrong. And by the way, if the death penalty were to be legal, it would have to be administered on a case by case bases, so as to be as fair as possible.

Its very easy to take a concensus issue, murder, and present it as a case of moral absolutism. Yes, murder is a moral issue and a subjective one. Most probably, more than 95% of the human population believe murder to be immoral. That does not make the answer objective.

So tell me, because some people think murdering an innocent with no good reason is morally right, and a good thing to do, that means you can't say "That was wrong to kill that person, that was immoral", and be right? You mean you are aren't right in saying that? You mean that killing of an innocent without reason isn't really 'wrong', it wasn't unjust, just because a few wackos think that it was a good thing to do? So you someone can kill a member of a family you for no good reason at all, yet they haven't actually done a bad thing, and I couldn't say "Hey, that was wrong", and be right? You mean what that person did wasn't wrong at all?

Your argument becomes more ridiculous with every paragraph you write.

How about a more controversial issue? How about a teenage girl who slept with her boyfriend and got pregnant. He wants to marry her and keep the baby. His parents want her to marry and keep the baby. Her parents want her to marry and keep the baby. But she doesn't want to keep it because she says she's too young, she doesn't want to marry and doesn't want the responsibility. Is she morally "allowed" to abort the child? Do you seriously believe there is a right and wrong answers here??

You are again simplifiying. I never said that in all moral situations there was a definite right or wrong. In some cases either option could be morally equal, or one a 'little bit' more moral than the other. But it doesn't mean the morality of those options is subjective based on any person who takes 1 minute to voice his poorly thought out opinion on the matter.

who does understand the true implications? You?

I understand the implications of some moral issues, but not all. Others understand the ones I don't. Just because there is not a single person who understand everything does not mean its somehow subjective.

[abu afak]

Sharonbn ..

You have some BAD (but classic) misconceptions about the Current situation.

First .. "That Jews may be Khazars".. NO they MayN'T.

""... A series of analyses was performed to address whether modern Jewish Y-chromosome diversity derives mainly from a common Middle Eastern source population or from admixture with neighboring non-Jewish populations during and after the Diaspora. Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities. A multidimensional scaling plot placed six of the seven Jewish populations in a relatively tight cluster that was interspersed with Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, including Palestinians and Syrians. Pairwise differentiation tests further indicated that these Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora....""


http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/12/6769

and MANY others -- just ask
There is also much Social research disproving this Red Herring.

------------------------------------------

Second: "That Arabs have been living here for 1000 Years":

"......Greeks fled the Muslim rule in Greece, and landed in Palestine. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Greeks lived everywhere in the Holy Land--constituting about twenty percent of the population-and their authority dominated the villages.3

Between 1750 and 1766 Jaffa had been rebuilt, and had some five hundred houses. Turks, Arabs, Greeks and Armenians and a solitary Latin monk lived there, to attend to the wants of the thousands of pilgrims who had to be temporarily housed in the port before proceeding to Jerusalem.4
"In some cases villages [in Palestine] are populated wholly by settlers from other portions of the Turkish Empire within the nineteenth century. There are villages of Bosnians, Druzes, Circassians and Egyptians," one historian has reported. 5
Another source, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 edition (before the "more chauvinist Arab history" began to prevail with the encouragement of the British), finds the "population" of Palestine composed of so "widely differing" a group of "inhabitants" -- whose "ethnological affinities" create "early in the 20th century a list of no less than fifty languages" (see below) -- that "it is therefore no easy task to write concisely ... on the ethnology of Palestine." In addition to the "Assyrian, Persian and Roman" elements of ancient times, "the short-lived Egyptian government introduced into the population an element from that country which still persists in the villages."

. . . There are very large contingents from the Mediterranean countries, especially Armenia, Greece and Italy . . . Turkoman settlements ... a number of Persians and a fairly large Afghan colony . . . Motawila ... long settled immigrants from Persia ... tribes of Kurds ... German "Templar" colonies ... a Bosnian colony ... and the Circassian settlements placed in certain centres ... by the Turkish government in order to keep a restraint on the Bedouin ... a large Algerian element in the population ... still maintain(s) [while] the Sudanese have been reduced in numbers since the beginning of the 20th century.
In the late eighteenth century, 3,000 Albanians recruited by Russians were settled in Acre. The Encyclopaedia Britannica finds "most interesting all the non-Arab communities in the country . . . the Samaritan sect in Nablus (Shechem); a gradually disappearing body" once "settled by the Assyrians to occupy the land left waste by the captivity of the Kingdom of Israel."6
The disparate peoples recently assumed and purported to be "settled Arab indigenes, for a thousand years" were in fact a "heterogeneous" community 7 With no "Palestinian" identity, and according to an official British historical analysis in 1920, no Arab identity either: "The people west of the Jordan are not Arabs, but only Arabic-speaking. The bulk of the population are fellahin.... In the Gaza district they are mostly of Egyptian origin; elsewhere they are of the most mixed race." 8

and Much more with notes at http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~peters/mixed.html


Also, the land had been largely abandoned, with the desolation reaching it's apex in the Early-Mid 19th Century (more on this too).
The Arabs and many other groups following the Money and economic opportunity created with the Return of the Zionists near the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th.

Here's your Native Tel Aviv in 1909:

http://www.palestinefacts.org/images...nding_1909.jpg

Notice all the "Displaced Arabs"


(and please see sign off quote under all my posts)

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by I am David
The fact that you base your argument on your personal opinion of what is enough time to 'moralize' a peoples ownership of a land should illustrate your overall weakness in this argument. You say 'I believe there is no moral justification for claiming any property after 2,000 years', and 'I personally put the line at 100 years.' Yes, you personally put it at 100 years. Who the heck cares what you personally would put the number of years at? I personally would put the number of minutes of driving a car that is not ones own that it would take to become yours at 30 minutes, so that I could claim this nice car that I am borrowing is simply mine because I have used it for the amount of minutes that I personal think is enough to claim its mine. But just because I personally think that 30 minutes is enough time, does not mean that the car is morally mine. Is it? I mean I believe that 30 minutes is enough for that car to be mine, just as much as you believe that 100 years is enough to erase any prior claim to a peice land. So really, this car, that I just borrowed, is mine! Because I had it for 30 minutes and my opinion is that 30 minutes is all that it takes! Give me a break. That is pathetic.

Time and time again you mix legal issues with moral ones.
The question of who owns a car after 30 minutes has a legal answer in the low book So the thief may scream his lungs out about the morality of his claim – he will still go to jail.
The question of who owns a car after 30 minutes has no moral answer. This is because car thief’s conviction on the moral justification of his claim may still stand.

There are countless examples in history where people went to jail for standing against what they believed to be morally wrong. Remember Rosa Parcks? Was she morally right or wrong to break the law? You’ll get different answers from different people (hell I don’t know the answer to this one.) If you find this hard to tackle (I can see you jump “of course she was morally right!”), then I remind you of the example I gave regarding the movie “Time to a kill”. Half my friends thought Samuel Jackson had moral right to kill the rapists of his daughter, and half though he should have gone to jail. People have moral conviction regardless of the popular opinion or the law – and no one person can say if that moral conviction is right or wrong. The court only decides what is legally right or wrong. There is no one person in the world who can decide on moral controversies.

I don’t understand why the difference is so hard to grasp.

Originally posted by I am David
You say 100 years is enough eh? 100 years is nothing. I say it needs to be 5000 years. Does that make me right? Does that make you wrong? But you say its 100. Does that make me wrong? No, it is neither, simply because this is not the determining factor, not an individuals opinion of what is enough time. The determining factor is the descendents of the Jews who were expelled did not have a home, were in foreign lands being persecuted, all the while a bunch of Arabs decided they wanted a change of scene and took land that was not theirs, and was still someone elses. This is immoral, wether or not the Arabs thought it was. What they thought does not matter, the act was still immoral. All the subjectivness in the world can not change that it was immoral. And no, 100 years is not enough to erase the Jews claim to the land, as they were/are still around.

The question of which nation has a historical right to a region of land has no answer in the low book If I say 100 years is enough to claim moral right over the land, if you say 100 years is “nothing” WHERE is the answer written? Like the popular say goes “who died and made you authority on moral issues?”
Who’s to say how much time, if any, is enough to claim a region of land by virtue of historical link?

Originally posted by I am David
What am I wrong about concerning this? Are you trying to say that Abortion is one single definition, that there are not, first, second, and third trimister abortions? Are you trying to say that a first trimister abortion is not different than a third trimister abortion, enough that it can be considered a different situation? Answer the question. Are you trying to say, that just because a country's laws have one law for all abortion, that a first trimister abortion is not different than a third trimister abortion? No I am not wrong. You are.

First of all, afaik, abortion is not feasible after the 11th week or so. After that time, the fetus needs to be killed and the mother has to “deliver” the dead body. This is not an abortion ans is not called by that name.
To answer the moral question, in my eyes a baby becomes a person upon birth, not before. So when the technology becomes available, abortion is morally allowed until one day before the delivery.
This is my personal opinion – who’s to say I’m wrong? You? Excuse me for doubting your authority on the matter. Popular opinion? I already showed how popular opinion is not to decide in moral questions. So who is it?

Originally posted by I am David
Who is to say if the death penalty should be used or forbidden? At least someone who understands everthing about it, and knows what is truethfully right or wrong. And by the way, if the death penalty were to be legal, it would have to be administered on a case by case bases, so as to be as fair as possible.

Who is this person? Can you give me his name or title?
Is it the judge in the trial? Or the one in the supreme court? Do the judges in the supreme court know “more” about “what is truthfully right or wrong”?
What if all these wise people are wrong and send the wrong person to his death? After all we’re all humans, no?
It is not so long ago that homosexuality was considered a moral wrong and people were sent to jail for this offense (Oscar Wilde was one of them) – and all these wise men –Parliament members, judges, lawyers – everyone believed they know the right answer. I bet if you and I lived in these times, we also would’ve think the same.
Now, I believe today the consensus in western civilization accepts alternative sexual tendencies. So 100 years ago – where was this authority on moral issues? Why did it let poor Mr. Wilde to go to jail?
Can you imagine what moral standards will be consensus 100 years from today? Maybe the issues of abortion, death penalty, homosexuality, etc. will have different answers? So who can say today what’s right and wrong? Who is it that knows “what is truthfully right or wrong”?

Originally posted by I am David
So tell me, because some people think murdering an innocent with no good reason is morally right, and a good thing to do, that means you can't say "That was wrong to kill that person, that was immoral", and be right? You mean you are aren't right in saying that? You mean that killing of an innocent without reason isn't really 'wrong', it wasn't unjust, just because a few wackos think that it was a good thing to do? So you someone can kill a member of a family you for no good reason at all, yet they haven't actually done a bad thing, and I couldn't say "Hey, that was wrong", and be right? You mean what that person did wasn't wrong at all?

When the first suffragists started advocating women’s right to vote, they were considered wackos. When the first students started protesting the Vietnam war, they were considered wackos. When the first Israeli mothers started protesting the Lebanon war, they were considered wackos.
The list goes on and on – whenever popular opinion is challenged – the advocators are NEVER treated seriously. They are always called “wackos“ and are scorned.

Originally posted by I am David
You are again simplifiying. I never said that in all moral situations there was a definite right or wrong. In some cases either option could be morally equal, or one a 'little bit' more moral than the other. But it doesn't mean the morality of those options is subjective based on any person who takes 1 minute to voice his poorly thought out opinion on the matter.

I ask again – who’s to decide?????

Originally posted by I am David
I understand the implications of some moral issues, but not all. Others understand the ones I don't. Just because there is not a single person who understand everything does not mean its somehow subjective.

In the moral question at hand, the right for the occupied territories, who is it that “understand everything”? You? Ariel Sharon? Who?

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by abu afak
6
The disparate peoples recently assumed and purported to be "settled Arab indigenes, for a thousand years" were in fact a "heterogeneous" community 7 With no "Palestinian" identity, and according to an official British historical analysis in 1920, no Arab identity either: "The people west of the Jordan are not Arabs, but only Arabic-speaking. The bulk of the population are fellahin.... In the Gaza district they are mostly of Egyptian origin; elsewhere they are of the most mixed race." 8

First of all, even if these "mixed race" people are not Arab they ae also not Jewish, right?

Second, I do not dispute Israel's right to exist. The state of Israel did not form as a result of war and forced occupation.
I dispute the notion that after forced occupation of territories, some Jews claim moral and historical right for these territories, disregarding the wishes of the people living there.

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by sharonbn
Second, I do not dispute Israel's right to exist. The state of Israel did not form as a result of war and forced occupation.

You say that like it's unique or particularly at variance with any other modern history. There are two types countries in existance. One - formed by agression and the other, coming apart from pressures brought on by 'unnaturally' mixing different groups together.

[sharonbn]

I was pointing out the reason for the difference in reference to the state of Israel and the occupied territories.
This difference is also appearant by the simple fact that despite 30+ yeas of occupation, Israel did not legally annex the teritories (only Jerusalem municipality was annexed)

[I am David]

Time and time again you mix legal issues with moral ones. The question of who owns a car after 30 minutes has a legal answer in the low book So the thief may scream his lungs out about the morality of his claim – he will still go to jail. The question of who owns a car after 30 minutes has no moral answer. This is because car thief’s conviction on the moral justification of his claim may still stand.

Do no hide behind legality. As I have mentioned many times, legality is often based on morality. But that is aside the issue. The point is that my analogy is meant to illustrate the ridiculousness of any one person thinking he has the authority to claim the amount of time it takes for property to be inherited, and thinking that because he says it hes right, even though his 'time' argument ignores all other moral issues of the situation. If you have trouble ignoring legality, then pretend the analogy takes place in a country where there are no laws, but the society as a whole was still equally civil as the US/Israel/whatever. Are you happy now? Now you can't complain about legality, and the analogy is still the same. Stop ignoring the issue, and argue the analogy.

The question of which nation has a historical right to a region of land has no answer in the low book If I say 100 years is enough to claim moral right over the land, if you say 100 years is “nothing” WHERE is the answer written? Like the popular say goes “who died and made you authority on moral issues?” Who’s to say how much time, if any, is enough to claim a region of land by virtue of historical link?

That's the same question I asked...

Arguing against yourself won't help

Just to clear things up, I was arguing about the Jews right to the land despite time, at least while the Jews are still around. I was the one arguing that your opinion of 100 years being the time is ridiculous, as you thought that that was some kind of valid argument.

First of all, afaik, abortion is not feasible after the 11th week or so. After that time, the fetus needs to be killed and the mother has to “deliver” the dead body. This is not an abortion ans is not called by that name. To answer the moral question, in my eyes a baby becomes a person upon birth, not before. So when the technology becomes available, abortion is morally allowed until one day before the delivery. This is my personal opinion – who’s to say I’m wrong? You? Excuse me for doubting your authority on the matter. Popular opinion? I already showed how popular opinion is not to decide in moral questions. So who is it?

First of all, as far as you know, you are wrong, and abortion is anything when the fetuse's life is terminated before birth. This includes one day before birth would have occcured.

As far as the moral issue, your personal opinion is one covering many different situations that shouldnt be grouped and considered one. Is the fetus endangering the mothers life? Was the mother fertilized by a rapist? Does the baby have an unusually high change of total mental retardation? These situations all have different answers, so you can't act like they are one. That is why abortion is so complex and people have such a hard time arguing it.

I have a question, what is so different from a fetus(think baby) that is one day from birth, then a baby that is one minute after birth? Do you think they are any different? What is it in the few hours that makes one so much more deserving of life than the other? Hmm?

Who is this person? Can you give me his name or title? Is it the judge in the trial? Or the one in the supreme court? Do the judges in the supreme court know “more” about “what is truthfully right or wrong”? What if all these wise people are wrong and send the wrong person to his death? After all we’re all humans, no?

I don't see what's so trying about your questions. They are simple. Yes judges usually have a much higher understanding of morality than your day to day person(non judge). Although that doesn't mean they can't be fooled by the lawer who twists the situation/case in his favor. Yes they are human, and so what if they make mistakes? They can, and it doesn't change the laws of morality at all.

It is not so long ago that homosexuality was considered a moral wrong and people were sent to jail for this offense (Oscar Wilde was one of them) – and all these wise men –Parliament members, judges, lawyers – everyone believed they know the right answer.

Usually, as the world progresses, more and more of human society becomes morally correct. Yes they believed that then, and they were wrong. Yes they were wrong. Homosexuallity is not a moral wrong, unless you force it onto others. But unless you can tell me what is morally wrong about being gay, keeping it to yourself (or finding a willing partner) then those people were flat out wrong. It doesn't matter that popular opinion thought it was wrong, because that didn't change the nature of the situation. Just because killing of innocents and ethnic cleansing was the standard in wars in ancient days does not make the acts any less morally wrong. Does it? I hope you say no.

When the first suffragists started advocating women’s right to vote, they were considered wackos. When the first students started protesting the Vietnam war, they were considered wackos. When the first Israeli mothers started protesting the Lebanon war, they were considered wackos. The list goes on and on – whenever popular opinion is challenged – the advocators are NEVER treated seriously. They are always called “wackos“ and are scorned.

Stop dodging, answer the question....

So tell me, because some people think murdering an innocent with no good reason is morally right, and a good thing to do, that means you can't say "That was wrong to kill that person, that was immoral", and be right? You mean you are aren't right in saying that? You mean that killing of an innocent without reason isn't really 'wrong', it wasn't unjust, just because a few wackos think that it was a good thing to do? So you someone can kill a member of a family you for no good reason at all, yet they haven't actually done a bad thing, and I couldn't say "Hey, that was wrong", and be right? You mean what that person did wasn't wrong at all?

Now Sharon, I would like to point out your argueing 'stragety'. You keep pointing out how different people think different things on moral issues, and how general opinions of moral issues change over time, and then ask the question "who is to say who is right?", as if that shows that there can be no absolute right or wrong. That is a weak arguing strategy, because it doesnt show that. If one person thinks that putting a CD in the drive label side up works, and another thinks that putting the CD label side down works, does the fact that there is a disagreement over the issue prove that neither method works at all???

Well that is your strategy, and although you may argue that science does have absolute truths, while morality doesn't, my point is that your strategy for arguing that position doesn't prove that at all, as my analogy shows, and you are left with an unsuported position.

So I ask you, come up with a different argument, or just keep repeating yourself in vain.

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by I am David
Just to clear things up, I was arguing about the Jews right to the land despite time, at least while the Jews are still around. I was the one arguing that your opinion of 100 years being the time is ridiculous, as you thought that that was some kind of valid argument.

As I understand, you yourself put the stature of limitation on 5,000 years. So I naively thought we agree on the concept of "stature of limitation" and are arguiung on the amount of time.
Am I wrong?

You know, the concept of "stature of limitation" applies to most criminal offenses, theft be one of them. Why do you discard this notion when it comes to the issue at hand?

The law indeed does not state stature of limitation for historical claim on land. However, the law does not even recognize the legality of such claim. As I said, no one can come to court and claim they have a right to settle in the occupied territories by virtue of history. I guess people will call them wackos

Originally posted by I am David
As far as the moral issue, your personal opinion is one covering many different situations that shouldnt be grouped and considered one. Is the fetus endangering the mothers life? Was the mother fertilized by a rapist? Does the baby have an unusually high change of total mental retardation? These situations all have different answers, so you can't act like they are one. That is why abortion is so complex and people have such a hard time arguing it.

I asked you before: what if the fetus does not endanger the mother's life, and the intercourse was not forced (I said the boyfriend wants her to keep the baby and wishes to marry her, remember?), and the baby is healthy, its the 8th week of pregnancy - everything is fine and dandy except for one and only one thing - the mother, an 18 y.o teenager, doesn't want the baby - does this situation has one answer?

Stop dodging...

Originally posted by I am David
I have a question, what is so different from a fetus(think baby) that is one day from birth, then a baby that is one minute after birth? Do you think they are any different? What is it in the few hours that makes one so much more deserving of life than the other? Hmm?

There is no difference in the baby. The only difference is that before the birth it is called an abortion, while after it it is called murder. In my eyes, Until the delivery, the mother's interest take precedence over the child's ones. So if, for whatever reason, the mother does not wish to deliver the child – she may abort. After birth the scale reverses.
If they invent a pill tomorrow that allows mothers to abort a child at whatever stage of pregnancy - I'm all for it.

Originally posted by I am David
I don't see what's so trying about your questions. They are simple. Yes judges usually have a much higher understanding of morality than your day to day person(non judge). Although that doesn't mean they can't be fooled by the lawer who twists the situation/case in his favor. Yes they are human, and so what if they make mistakes? They can, and it doesn't change the laws of morality at all.

Well, if you put the judicial system as the authority of the moral question of who has a right to settle in the occupied territories, than you should know that such a claim is not considered valid in court.

Originally posted by I am David
Usually, as the world progresses, more and more of human society becomes morally correct. Yes they believed that then, and they were wrong. Yes they were wrong. Homosexuallity is not a moral wrong, unless you force it onto others. But unless you can tell me what is morally wrong about being gay, keeping it to yourself (or finding a willing partner) then those people were flat out wrong. It doesn't matter that popular opinion thought it was wrong, because that didn't change the nature of the situation. Just because killing of innocents and ethnic cleansing was the standard in wars in ancient days does not make the acts any less morally wrong. Does it? I hope you say no.

First of all, there is no such thing as "human society". There are human societies, in plural. You obviously refer to secular capitalistic western civilization. Other societies have other standards than this one.
For instance (I believe this is another example I already presented) One of the fundamental characteristics of Indian society is the rigid cast system. It is upheld to present date. This contradicts present western ideal of “all men were born equal”.
Another example is religious societies. I believe if you ask the question of the morality of homosexuality to a religious person (be it Jewish, Christian or Muslim) you'll get the answer that this lifestyle is immoral because this is not the way God intended humans to behave. Religious Jews even believe it is immoral to masturbate. While this person may not condone sending gay people to jail, he will also disapprove of gay couples having the same rights as normal couples (e.g. marriage, adoption, inheritance, etc.). In fact, afaik, the vast majority of US states don’t recognize gay marriage. Why is that?

Second, even when "society" progresses, it deos not mean it has higher moral standards than waht was before it - remember the Nazis?

We agree that human moral standards have changed over the course of history. The process will likely remain in the future. I believe it will never cease, as events and evolution will always shape human belief and tendencies.
This means that our actions and beliefs today will be judged by standards we cannot comprehend today - this is true for every point in time, past or future. so we know any answer we give today (indeed not just to moral questions - but to ANY question) may turn out to be wrong in the future. So how do we know when we're right? Each one of us can only know what’s right for him/her.

Originally posted by I am David
So tell me, because some people think murdering an innocent with no good reason is morally right, and a good thing to do, that means you can't say "That was wrong to kill that person, that was immoral", and be right? You mean you are aren't right in saying that? You mean that killing of an innocent without reason isn't really 'wrong', it wasn't unjust, just because a few wackos think that it was a good thing to do? So you someone can kill a member of a family you for no good reason at all, yet they haven't actually done a bad thing, and I couldn't say "Hey, that was wrong", and be right? You mean what that person did wasn't wrong at all?

Yes. I believe I cannot say that ANY action, even murder, is absolutely wrong. I can only say it if it is legal and I can only state that it is wrong according to my personal standards.
If multiple answers are correct in one question (as you yourself admitted) than it is true for all questions.

Originally posted by I am David
Now Sharon, I would like to point out your argueing 'stragety'. You keep pointing out how different people think different things on moral issues, and how general opinions of moral issues change over time, and then ask the question "who is to say who is right?", as if that shows that there can be no absolute right or wrong. That is a weak arguing strategy, because it doesnt show that. If one person thinks that putting a CD in the drive label side up works, and another thinks that putting the CD label side down works, does the fact that there is a disagreement over the issue prove that neither method works at all???

1,000 years ago everybody knew the word was flat.
100 years ago everybody knew the atom is the smallest particle in nature.
10 years ago everybody knew that black holes do not exist in our galaxy.
You believe you know today the only correct way to insert a CD ROM ...

Originally posted by I am David
Well that is your strategy, and although you may argue that science does have absolute truths, while morality doesn't, my point is that your strategy for arguing that position doesn't prove that at all, as my analogy shows, and you are left with an unsuported position.

I don’t say science has absolute truths. I say I accept science authority in answering scientific questions. I don’t believe there is such a consensus authority on moral disputes in general, and specifically no one has the answer as to which people has the right for the occupied territories. The only answer I accept is of legal ownership of a given piece of land, according to legal documents.

[I am David]

As I understand, you yourself put the stature of limitation on 5,000 years. So I naively thought we agree on the concept of "stature of limitation" and are arguiung on the amount of time. Am I wrong?

I said that to show you how my claim of years is just as valid as yours, (and it is), and thus to show how your opinion of 100 years means nothing.

You know, the concept of "stature of limitation" applies to most criminal offenses, theft be one of them. Why do you discard this notion when it comes to the issue at hand?

Uh, mabye because its a different situation, involving different kinds of parties over different periods times? You act as if one situation has an answer, that answer applies to ALL. The world and its workings are bit more complex than that...

The law indeed does not state stature of limitation for historical claim on land. However, the law does not even recognize the legality of such claim. As I said, no one can come to court and claim they have a right to settle in the occupied territories by virtue of history. I guess people will call them wackos

There is no court in the world that can judge on this kind of case (Jews' claim to the land vs Arab claims). They don't have laws concerning the ownership of ancient land. Thus we must decide on the morality of the issue on our own, and not say "oh well because no court has laws about this that means we can't talk at all about who has a right to the land!" That is really is a lame argument. Hypocritically, you say someone would be called a wacko if he said he has right to the land by virtue of historial right, yet just before you said the court also doesn't reconize land ownership by virtue of 'stature of limitation'. So someone with your argument would also be called a wacko. Haven't gotten very far have you?

It is pointless to show how courts cannot rule on an issue like this, and I ask you to drop the issue. If you cannot come up with a different argument than one so obviously wrong then mabye you should admit defeat. By the way, although courts aren't really meant to judge on cases like this one, they do offer analogous cases, such as the car one I mentioned, or a similar house/property one. Say a family leaves their house empty for 4 years, deciding to live in another country for a while, they come back, and find the house taken over by another family, who has no claim to the land other than the claim that they have an emotional attachment to it (about 4 years, enough time to become emotionally attached to a house and property.) Who would the judge say has a right to the house/property? Yes the original owners, and yes because by legal right, but also by moral right, because those kinds of laws are often based on morility. They have a legal right because the land is morally theirs because they did not relinquish their claim to the house nor did the length of 4 years do anything to their claim of it. The law(s) that the original owners still own the house is based on the same morality that I speak of, so don't try to draw the destinction because this has a legal answer and the Jew/Arab one doesn't.

I asked you before: what if the fetus does not endanger the mother's life, and the intercourse was not forced (I said the boyfriend wants her to keep the baby and wishes to marry her, remember?), and the baby is healthy, its the 8th week of pregnancy - everything is fine and dandy except for one and only one thing - the mother, an 18 y.o teenager, doesn't want the baby - does this situation has one answer? Stop dodging...

I am not fit to answer that because I don't know how developed the fetus is at that point/how many human properties it has yet. Is it conscious? Does it feel pain? Can it move? I don't know, so I don't know the answer.

There is no difference in the baby. The only difference is that before the birth it is called an abortion, while after it it is called murder. In my eyes, Until the delivery, the mother's interest take precedence over the child's ones. So if, for whatever reason, the mother does not wish to deliver the child – she may abort. After birth the scale reverses. If they invent a pill tomorrow that allows mothers to abort a child at whatever stage of pregnancy - I'm all for it.

No, I asked, why do you find it acceptable to murder a 9 month old fetus, yet a few hours later, not acceptable to murder a new born baby? I asked you why the new born baby, only a few hours older than the 9 month old fetus, is so much more deserving of life even though there is no different in terms of humaness between the two.

Well, if you put the judicial system as the authority of the moral question of who has a right to settle in the occupied territories, than you should know that such a claim is not considered valid in court.

Well hate to brake it to you, but I never said that. There goes that argument...

First of all, there is no such thing as "human society". There are human societies, in plural. You obviously refer to secular capitalistic western civilization. Other societies have other standards than this one. For instance (I believe this is another example I already presented) One of the fundamental characteristics of Indian society is the rigid cast system. It is upheld to present date. This contradicts present western ideal of “all men were born equal”. Another example is religious societies. I believe if you ask the question of the morality of homosexuality to a religious person (be it Jewish, Christian or Muslim) you'll get the answer that this lifestyle is immoral because this is not the way God intended humans to behave. Religious Jews even believe it is immoral to masturbate. While this person may not condone sending gay people to jail, he will also disapprove of gay couples having the same rights as normal couples (e.g. marriage, adoption, inheritance, etc.). In fact, afaik, the vast majority of US states don’t recognize gay marriage. Why is that? Second, even when "society" progresses, it deos not mean it has higher moral standards than waht was before it - remember the Nazis?

I was refering to human society as a whole, even though it also consists of many smaller societies. All of humanity can be considered a single society, so it is correct to refer to it as one if you want to. But I was refering to the state of human morality as a whole over the course of time. It has got better, overall with the progression of time, with exceptions of course(nazis).

We agree that human moral standards have changed over the course of history. The process will likely remain in the future. I believe it will never cease, as events and evolution will always shape human belief and tendencies. This means that our actions and beliefs today will be judged by standards we cannot comprehend today - this is true for every point in time, past or future. so we know any answer we give today (indeed not just to moral questions - but to ANY question) may turn out to be wrong in the future. So how do we know when we're right? Each one of us can only know what’s right for him/her.

The change of human moral standards over time does not mean the what is rightous/unrightous/inbetween changes as well. Its true the standards judged by in the world may change, but so what? If it is legal in the future to kill an innocent without reason, does that make it any less wrong? DOES IT?

Yes. I believe I cannot say that ANY action, even murder, is absolutely wrong. I can only say it if it is legal and I can only state that it is wrong according to my personal standards. If multiple answers are correct in one question (as you yourself admitted) than it is true for all questions.

I hope one day you realize the absurdity and sickness of that statement. Can someone brutally torture and then murder an innocent girl playing with her friends, and you will stand there over her dead, mutilated body and say simple to her parents 'what the murder did was not wrong at all, it was not unjust, it was not evil, it was not anything bad at all. Some say that murder like this is good, some say bad, so it can't be wrong!!!'??? Yay good for you and your subjectivness of morality!

The murder of that girl is what it is, and all the different opinions of the morality of that murder do not change the torment of the family for losing their daughter, and of her friends, and all the years unlived by that girl...

By they way, if you think you cannot say the murder was wrong, then why do you find it acceptable for the judge to punish him? If he is neither wrong nor right, then why should he be punished for something that wasn't wrong?

If multiple answers are correct in one question (as you yourself admitted) than it is true for all questions.

What? You misunderstood me.

1,000 years ago everybody knew the word was flat. 100 years ago everybody knew the atom is the smallest particle in nature. 10 years ago everybody knew that black holes do not exist in our galaxy. You believe you know today the only correct way to insert a CD ROM ...

Ok quit the nonsense, if you put a game cd into your cd drive with the label side facing the ground, is it going to work??? If you have a standard cd drive, then it wont. It's as simple as that. You wont be able to install the game, you wont be able to play it. Now go back and answer the question.

Continued...

[I am David]

I don’t say science has absolute truths. I say I accept science authority in answering scientific questions. I don’t believe there is such a consensus authority on moral disputes in general, and specifically no one has the answer as to which people has the right for the occupied territories.

Science does have absolute truths. 1+1=2 is an absolute truths as far as any human is concerned. The correct way to insert a CD into a standard consumer drive has an absolute truth (as far as the correct way to make it work)

The only answer I accept is of legal ownership of a given piece of land, according to legal documents.

Why? If there is no true owner of a peice of land (a person halfway across the world from belgium may think the whole country belongs to him, and thus it is just as much his as the several million people already living there), then how can you trust even legal doccuments to bybass your oh so glorious 'subjectivness of morallity'? Why, if there isn't a definite answer to anything, is it fair TO pass a definite answer on someting (aka legal laws)? Hmm?

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by I am David
I said that to show you how my claim of years is just as valid as yours, (and it is), and thus to show how your opinion of 100 years means nothing.

In the future, I suggest you take the bother (as I did) and scroll back to the post where you mention 5,000 years, before rushing to answer.

As it so happen, you did not mention 5,000 as a response to my 100 years opinion. In fact, I first give the number 100 as a response to your statement.

This is what you wrote:

Sharon your argument makes no decent sense. "1,500 years give the Arabs a claim on the land at least as legitimate as the Jewish one"? Why does it? Why do you think you have the authority to define the amount of time it takes for one group of peoples claim to the land overides anothers? You say 1,500 years is enough, well would you say 2 years is enough? No doubt you will say that is much to little. Well guess what, in my OPINION, one just as valid as yours I might add, 1,500 years is not enough to overide the original owners right to the land. In my opinion, it has to be at least 5,000 years. It is of my opinion that the right of ownership of land (as a nation) for a certain people, is no small thing that can be overidden by a few thousand years. It must be more significant, say, 5,000 years

If I'm to understand what you wrote, you claim 5,000 years or more are enough for one claim to override another. I do believe your opinion is as valid as mine. I also believe my opinion is as valid as yours.

I need an answer: are 5,000 years enough for one claim to overide another or not??
because if it is, its like the Bernard Shaw story: we already agreed on the concept, and just argue over the length of time.
If its not, then your opinion means nothing.

Originally posted by I am David
There is no court in the world that can judge on this kind of case (Jews' claim to the land vs Arab claims). They don't have laws concerning the ownership of ancient land. Thus we must decide on the morality of the issue on our own, and not say "oh well because no court has laws about this that means we can't talk at all about who has a right to the land!"

But this is exactly what I say: there is no authority that can and will give an answer for this question, "Thus we must decide on the morality of the issue on our own". Each has a valid opinion as the next one, and no one to judge who's morally right and who's wrong.

to qoute you:
Arguing against yourself won't help

Originally posted by I am David
By the way, although courts aren't really meant to judge on cases like this one, they do offer analogous cases, such as the car one I mentioned, or a similar house/property one. Say a family leaves their house empty for 4 years, deciding to live in another country for a while, they come back, and find the house taken over by another family, who has no claim to the land other than the claim that they have an emotional attachment to it (about 4 years, enough time to become emotionally attached to a house and property.) Who would the judge say has a right to the house/property? Yes the original owners, and yes because by legal right, but also by moral right

again, you argue against yourself.
Yes, there is no leagl stature of limitation on ancient land claim, but courts "do offer analogous cases". The stature of limitation in Israel on theft of property up to 500,000 NIS (~$100,000) is 18 years. Beyond that, the stature of limitation stands at 32 years.

Originally posted by I am David
I am not fit to answer that because I don't know how developed the fetus is at that point/how many human properties it has yet. Is it conscious? Does it feel pain? Can it move? I don't know, so I don't know the answer.

First of all, FYI, a fetus is not fully developed until it passed the 12th week (this is from the famous BBC series "the human body").

Second, if I understand you correctly, fetus condition is what makes or breaks. So why bother asking about danger to the mother, rape situation, etc.

Third and most important, even though I gave as much details as I could think of - you still state you don't know enough to give an answer or even hint on your tendecy. Before you pass judgement on this specific case you need to know if this specific fetus has wax in his ears and is already thinking dirty thoughts.

That's strange, because I now understand you say you know EXACTLY what the situation was in the land of Israel in any given point of time for the last 2,000 years. You know EXACTLY the race, nationality and favorite rock star of EVERY person living in the land, you know the family tree of EVERY family for generations upon generations...
oh yes and I guess you know what happened to the Khazar people as well.
You don't know all this, your knowledge is based almost exclusively on the bible, written - how conviniently - by the Jews but you still feel confident enough to give a solid 100% proved answer on who's morally right and who's wrong.

Originally posted by I am David
I was refering to human society as a whole, even though it also consists of many smaller societies. All of humanity can be considered a single society, so it is correct to refer to it as one if you want to. But I was refering to the state of human morality as a whole over the course of time. It has got better, overall with the progression of time, with exceptions of course(nazis).

I don't know where you took these ideas of yours. I can give you the origin of mine:
First lesson in "Introducton to Sociology and Anthropology" course (second year business school, Hebrew University, Jerusalem) is:
1) Generalizations are not allowed. Each human society should be viewed as a separate case in the context of its own history.
2) Don't judge other civilizations by your standards (i.e. prejudice)

Originally posted by I am David
The change of human moral standards over time does not mean the what is rightous/unrightous/inbetween changes as well. Its true the standards judged by in the world may change, but so what? If it is legal in the future to kill an innocent without reason, does that make it any less wrong? DOES IT?

Like I said, if you and I lived 100 years ago, we would belive homosexuality is immoral. If you and I lived 1000 years ago, we would belive killing is moral.
People living 100 years in the future, will have different views on moral issues then the ones we hold today.

Galileo Galilei was trialed and sent to lifelong imprisonment because he said the earth revolves around the sun. He was publicly condemned and his books banned. He was treated as a criminal of the worse kind. TODAY we know who's right. Do you honestly believe history will not repeat itself in the future, and things you know and believe in today will turn out to be false?

Maybe there is one answer to everything - I honestly don't know. How do you know? maybe we both got it all wrong?

Originally posted by I am David
I hope one day you realize the absurdity and sickness of that statement. Can someone brutally torture and then murder an innocent girl playing with her friends, and you will stand there over her dead, mutilated body and say simple to her parents 'what the murder did was not wrong at all, it was not unjust, it was not evil, it was not anything bad at all. Some say that murder like this is good, some say bad, so it can't be wrong!!!'??? Yay good for you and your subjectivness of morality!

Please come off that high tree, and go back and re-read my answer.
I explicitly said I believe murder is morally wrong. I believe every murderer should be put behind bars for the rest of his/her life. OK?
I admit this is my personal conviction and don't hold is as the absolute truth.

Once again, I am presented with an example of how quickly you jump to moral conclusions in this case, without the need to know the reason or circumstances.

I ask you, for the third time, about the movie (or novel) "A time to a kill". Samuel Jackson committed murder in this case. is he a murderer or an avenger?
please stop D-O-D-G-I-N-G

Originally posted by I am David
By they way, if you think you cannot say the murder was wrong, then why do you find it acceptable for the judge to punish him? If he is neither wrong nor right, then why should he be punished for something that wasn't wrong?

Because he broke the law.

Originally posted by sharonbn
If multiple answers are correct in one question (as you yourself admitted) than it is true for all questions.

Originally posted by I am David
What? You misunderstood me.

I qoute you:
"You are again simplifiying. I never said that in all moral situations there was a definite right or wrong. In some cases either option could be morally equal, or one a 'little bit' more moral than the other. But it doesn't mean the morality of those options is subjective based on any person who takes 1 minute to voice his poorly thought out opinion on the matter."
by the way, this is an "answer" you gave to the question about the teenage pregnant mother. I put answer in qoutes since you still didn't state your personal opinion (I guess you don't know all the facts of the matter, right?)

continued...

[sharonbn]

Originally posted by I am David
Ok quit the nonsense, if you put a game cd into your cd drive with the label side facing the ground, is it going to work??? If you have a standard cd drive, then it wont. It's as simple as that. You wont be able to install the game, you wont be able to play it. Now go back and answer the question.

I tried to answer the question with some intelligence, but maybe this is not your favorable kind of answers.
When I first came upon this question, I thought to myself: "what did David mean when he asked this? he meant that in some cases there are absolute answers. So I will give him examples were "absolute" answers turned out to be false.
I will try to be more obvious from now on.

Yes, there is only one way to put a CD ROM in the drive.
What does this answer proove? that there is an absolute answer to everyting?
I would like, once again, to qoute you:
"Uh, mabye because its a different situation, involving different kinds of parties over different periods times? You act as if one situation has an answer, that answer applies to ALL. The world and its workings are bit more complex than that..."
Maybe the world is a bit more complex than a CD ROM???

Originally posted by I am David
Science does have absolute truths. 1+1=2 is an absolute truths as far as any human is concerned. The correct way to insert a CD into a standard consumer drive has an absolute truth (as far as the correct way to make it work)

There we go again, jumping to conclusions, thinking we KNOW the absolute truth, same as our fathers knew the earth is flat.

I strongly recommend you reading the excellent book "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh.
Singh tells there of a project that started in the end of the 19th cent. Leading mathmaticians took upon themselves to check all the mathematical knowledge that was accumulated at that time. They went back to basics and examined all the axioms, and re-prooved the proofs.

An example is "the scope of numbers". It was "known" that the positive, negative, irrational, imaginery numbers and zero encompass all the numbers that exist. However this was never proven. Many mathematical sentences rely upon this axiom, whch needs to be proven or else all that is built upon it collapses.

To their dismay, they found it is impossible to proove even themost basic assumptions and axioms.
It was Bertrand Russell, a British logician that found a paradox that cannot be solved and collapses the foundations of mathematics.
Russell himself was so horrified by the prospect that mathematics is based on uncertain axioms, that he spent the next decade figuring out how to work around the paradox.
in 1910, he tought he had it. He published a book that explains how the paradox may be worked around. in 1930, Russell retired from work, believing his precious science field was safe and prooved.
Then, in 1931, a 25 y.o. annonymous mathematician by the name Kurt Godel, published an article that forced all mathematicians to agree that mathematics will NEVER be logically perfect.

btw, all Godel prooved was that the foundations of mathematics can never be prooved. They may still be right, but we can never know this for certain.

Originally posted by I am David
Why? If there is no true owner of a peice of land (a person halfway across the world from belgium may think the whole country belongs to him, and thus it is just as much his as the several million people already living there), then how can you trust even legal doccuments to bybass your oh so glorious 'subjectivness of morallity'? Why, if there isn't a definite answer to anything, is it fair TO pass a definite answer on someting (aka legal laws)? Hmm?

If there is no true owner of a peice of land (e.g. no man's land) then any person may claim it by settling on it. This is, btw, how Israel was founded: the Zonists didn't "claim" the land by virtue of hitorical link. They either purchased land from the Arab owners, thus becoming the legal owner, or went and settled in no man's land (e.g. the swamps of the Hula valley).

The person "halfway across the world" may believe as he sees fit. I don't chalenge his claim since I don't know if he's right or wrong.
Legal documents don't "pass by" morality. Legal documents establish claim on a piece of land. period. Regardless of any other unsubstatiated claim. The legal claim is upheld by the legal authority, i.e. the court. Sadly, courts don't rule on historical claim and there's no equivelant moral authority (you may seek answers from your local Rabbi if you accept his authority.)

[I am David]

In the future, I suggest you take the bother (as I did) and scroll back to the post where you mention 5,000 years, before rushing to answer. As it so happen, you did not mention 5,000 as a response to my 100 years opinion. In fact, I first give the number 100 as a response to your statement. This is what you wrote:

No, even there I was showing how my opinion was just as valid as yours, and thus the 'time' argument is meaningless.

But this is exactly what I say: there is no authority that can and will give an answer for this question, "Thus we must decide on the morality of the issue on our own". Each has a valid opinion as the next one, and no one to judge who's morally right and who's wrong. to qoute you: Arguing against yourself won't help

Again you misunderstand. I was not saying that the ownership of Israel is morally subjective and that anyones opinion how how many years it takes for Israel to become the Arabs is equally valid. My point was that the number of years is not thee or a judging factor in the issue to begin with, so that yes, all opinions on the number of years are equal, because they all are wrong. The judging factor on if it is moral or not simply isn't based on time, that's the point.

again, you argue against yourself. Yes, there is no leagl stature of limitation on ancient land claim, but courts "do offer analogous cases". The stature of limitation in Israel on theft of property up to 500,000 NIS (~$100,000) is 18 years. Beyond that, the stature of limitation stands at 32 years.

So?

First of all, FYI, a fetus is not fully developed until it passed the 12th week (this is from the famous BBC series "the human body"). Second, if I understand you correctly, fetus condition is what makes or breaks. So why bother asking about danger to the mother, rape situation, etc.

First, I was not asking about fully developed, I was looking for specific properties, like feeling of pain/consciousness at all.

Second, if it wasn't obvious, I asked about the state of the fetus AFTER you had said the situation did not include danger to the mother, rape, or other complication factors. Remember? I was only talking about the state of the fetus because in response to you, the other factors were not rellevent.

Third and most important, even though I gave as much details as I could think of - you still state you don't know enough to give an answer or even hint on your tendecy. Before you pass judgement on this specific case you need to know if this specific fetus has wax in his ears and is already thinking dirty thoughts.

I only ask for factors that matter. I mean you have to admit, even with your obsession with subjectivness, that if the fetus can feel pain and is conscious is at least an important factor when determing the morality of abortion, while earwax and dirty thoughts aren't really. How does earwax relate to morality? Hmm? It just doesn't matter. I think I stated almost all of the important factors on the morality of abortion (danger to mother, rape, possible mental/physical of the fetus, and the human properties of the fetus) Also the childs future upbringing is a factor to consider. Earwax isn't.

That's strange, because I now understand you say you know EXACTLY what the situation was in the land of Israel in any given point of time for the last 2,000 years. You know EXACTLY the race, nationality and favorite rock star of EVERY person living in the land, you know the family tree of EVERY family for generations upon generations... oh yes and I guess you know what happened to the Khazar people as well. You don't know all this, your knowledge is based almost exclusively on the bible, written - how conviniently - by the Jews but you still feel confident enough to give a solid 100% proved answer on who's morally right and who's wrong.

Well now that you know I am not concerned with the EXACT situation, and only the important factors, I hope you realize I don't care what the race, nationality, and favorite rock star is of 'EVERY' person, or their family tree. I know enough to correctly determine who has moral right to the land. I know the Jews were living peacefully on the land before they were invaded multiple times, as well as expelled fully by the Romans. I know that the Arab settlers after that had no important historic claim to the land as a people, and I know the Jews were around from then till now. I also don't think you will find too many real historians who disagree with me on these facts (at least the majority won't, there are alot of people in the world) Those are the things that are needed to determine who has a right to the land. I may have left out some, but if I did it is known. That info isn't also based on the bible, but on many proffessional historical ventures.

I don't know where you took these ideas of yours. I can give you the origin of mine: First lesson in "Introducton to Sociology and Anthropology" course (second year business school, Hebrew University, Jerusalem) is: 1) Generalizations are not allowed. Each human society should be viewed as a separate case in the context of its own history. 2) Don't judge other civilizations by your standards (i.e. prejudice)

I get my ideas from, much reading up on all of history and common sense? Also about not generalizing, what kind of generalizations are not allowed? Of course generalizations have to be allowed, otherwise talking about anything would be impossible. Otherwise you couldn't say 'The roman armies under the republic were well trained', because a few hundred troups during that time did not recieve good training. I suppose they meant generalizations of human society? I would like to read that lesson. I suppose they say in their that each 'human society' is completely seperate from eachother and they don't share any properties in common? Also I am not judging civilizations by my standards, I am only judging properties of those civilizations. That is different than making an overal rating of an individual civilization.

Like I said, if you and I lived 100 years ago, we would belive homosexuality is immoral. If you and I lived 100 years ago, we would belive killing is moral. People living 100 years in the future, will have different views on moral issues then the ones we hold today.

I think I have answered this argument several times. Just because personal beliefs on certain issues vary and change does not mean that the trueth also changes, or that there is no truth at all. Remember, despite one person thinking that a CD will work upside down, it actually doesn't. Just because he thinks one thing and another person thinks differently, does not mean that there is no definite truth on how to make the CD work. That goes for your galileo story as well. Despite the fact that what was done to him is different than what we would do now, that does not prevent me or most people from saying that what was done to him was morally wrong. He was an innocent man, not harming anyone, doing what he wanted to, and should not have been treated that way. Not very hard to understand...

Please come off that high tree, and go back and re-read my answer. I explicitly said I believe murder is morally wrong. I believe every murderer should be put behind bars for the rest of his/her life. OK? I admit this is my personal conviction and don't hold is as the absolute truth.

I know you find this morally wrong, that was not the question. I asked if you would say in that situation, if you would hold your ground and shout that the girl being murdered was not actually wrong, and that there was absolutly nothing morally wrong with the murder of her (despite your 'personal' opinion of it)

Once again, I am presented with an example of how quickly you jump to moral conclusions in this case, without the need to know the reason or circumstances.

Hello, I GAVE you the circumstances. I gave all important factors, the girl was innocent, not endangering/harming anyone, and the killer had no reasonn to kill her. No one needed the girl dead. That is enough.

Because he broke the law.

This is dodging again. But just to make you happy, say that same murder took place in a country with no official laws at all. None, Yet society was on the whole pretty much the same as it is in the US etc... Would the murder be undeserving of punishment? No not based on your moral opinion, I'm asking you if you and your subjectivness think that the murderer, since there was no laws that he broke, is any less deserving of punishment than in the US. Eh?

I qoute you: "You are again simplifiying. I never said that in all moral situations there was a definite right or wrong. In some cases either option could be morally equal, or one a 'little bit' more moral than the other. But it doesn't mean the morality of those options is subjective based on any person who takes 1 minute to voice his poorly thought out opinion on the matter." by the way, this is an "answer" you gave to the question about the teenage pregnant mother. I put answer in qoutes since you still didn't state your personal opinion (I guess you don't know all the facts of the matter.)

I took your 'if multiple answers are correct' to mean multiple answers that are only the opinions of people, and that the multiple answers can change based on who thinks what. That is different then saying there are a set number of solutions to a particular situation that are all morally equal.

Cont...

[I am David]

I tried to answer the question with some intelligence, but maybe this is not your favorable kind of answers. When I first came upon this question, I thought to myself: "what did David mean when he asked this? he meant that in some cases there are absolute answers. So I will give him examples were "absolute" answers turned out to be false. I will try to be more obvious from now on. Yes, there is only one way to put a CD ROM in the drive. What does this answer proove? that there is an absolute answer to everyting? I would like, once again, to qoute you: "Uh, mabye because its a different situation, involving different kinds of parties over different periods times? You act as if one situation has an answer, that answer applies to ALL. The world and its workings are bit more complex than that..." Maybe the world is a bit more complex t
han a CD ROM???

You don't understand what that analogy was for? This was my original argument about it...

Now Sharon, I would like to point out your argueing 'stragety'. You keep pointing out how different people think different things on moral issues, and how general opinions of moral issues change over time, and then ask the question "who is to say who is right?", as if that shows that there can be no absolute right or wrong. That is a weak arguing strategy, because it doesnt show that. If one person thinks that putting a CD in the drive label side up works, and another thinks that putting the CD label side down works, does the fact that there is a disagreement over the issue prove that neither method works at
all???


... The purpose of that analogy was to show that your argument of why morality is subjective is invalid. Your only argument for your belief seems to be showing me how people's opinions on a situation vary from person to person and over the course of time. Then you always ask in one way or another the question 'How can you say anyone is right???'. My point was this argument is invalid, simply put, because varying opinions or beliefs on an issue do not somehow prove that there is not an absolute truth. Thus, the CD analogy. Despite one person thinking CDs work upside down, and another saying they work right side up (relative to the label), there still is only one way that it does actually work.

There we go again, jumping to conclusions, thinking we KNOW the absolute truth, same as our fathers knew the earth is
flat. I strongly recommend you reading the excellent book "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh. Singh tells there of a
project that started in the end of the 19th cent. Leading mathmaticians took upon themselves to check all the mathematical knowledge that was accumulated at that time. They went back to basics and examined all the axioms, and re-prooved the proofs.

An example is "the scope of numbers". It was "known" that the positive, negative, irrational, imaginery numbers and zero
encompass all the numbers that exist. However this was never proven. Many mathematical sentences rely upon this axiom, whch needs to be proven or else all that is built upon it collapses. To their dismay, they found it is impossible to proove
even themost basic assumptions and axioms. It was Bertrand Russell, a British logician that found a paradox that cannot be
solved and collapses the foundations of mathematics. Russell himself was so horrified by the prospect that mathematics is
based on uncertain axioms, that he spent the next decade figuring out how to work around the paradox. in 1910, he tought he had it. He published a book that explains how the paradox may be worked around. in 1930, Russell retired from work, believing
his precious science field was safe and prooved. Then, in 1931, a 25 y.o. annonymous mathematician by the name Kurt Godel,
published an article that forced all mathematicians to agree that mathematics will NEVER be logically perfect. btw, all
Godel prooved was that the foundations of mathematics can never be prooved. They may still be right, but we can never know
this for certain.

Well to tell you the truth, the truths of morality is more reliable than those of science/math. This is because people are what they are and feel what they feel now, whereas we can't be sure what the universe is or how it works. Actually science and morality are very similar. The truths out there about the universe exist (however weird and twisted they may be), and that is equivilent to the truths about morality. They exist. However, people's beliefs on morality (which can be incorrect, and vary based on person and time period) are equivilent to the beliefs of of science (which can be incorrect, and vary based on person and time period.) Thus this leads me again to how your argument is invalid. Just because humans may not be sure of the truths about science/math, or scientists disagreements about them, does not prove they don't exist. Which is the same as how people disagreeing about morality does not show that morality does not have truths.

If there is no true owner of a peice of land (e.g. no man's land) then any person may claim it by settling on it. This is, btw, how Israel was founded: the Zonists didn't "claim" the land by virtue of hitorical link. They either purchased land from the Arab owners, thus becoming the legal owner, or went and settled in no man's land (e.g. the swamps of the Hula valley).

But Jews already had a moral claim to the land...

The person "halfway across the world" may believe as he sees fit. I don't chalenge his claim since I don't know if he's right or wrong.

I'm giving you the situation, I'm telling you he has absolutly no connection the land that anyone would ever say was claim to the land. Now answer the argument. Also I would like to point out, you said you didn't know if he is right OR [/i]wrong. Right or wrong sounds like absolute truths to me

Legal documents don't "pass by" morality. Legal documents establish claim on a piece of land. period. Regardless of any other unsubstatiated claim. The legal claim is upheld by the legal authority, i.e. the court. Sadly, courts don't rule on historical claim and there's no equivelant moral authority (you may seek answers from your local Rabbi if you accept his authority.)

But why do we even bother with claims to land? What's the point? I will tell you. The point is, Most of Western societies today want to be moral. So they have a legal system to make their community civil and morally rightous. Not every law is purely based on morality, and some are wrong, but overall, laws are meant to keep society civil/moral. This is why they have claims to lands, so that those who do have a moral right to the land, can [I]claim it, and so it can be official theirs, with no worries, because it should be theirs.

[Revkha]

Originally posted by I am David

But Jews already had a moral claim to the land...

Interesting thread.

At the end of World War I, Sharif Al Hussein, the leader of the Hashemite family and governor of Mecca said, when he saw the Jews returning to Palestine that he was seeing what was foretold in the Koran. When others settled in Palestine the land stayed barren, but now the land recognized its original sons and was now producing.

Land deeds or no land deeds - The land belongs to the Jews.