david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (04/09/84)
[*] This is a reply to Dick Dunn (your name didn't appear in this message header either, Dick). The discussion of goals vs. journeys is probably not going to get us anywhere. Most likely, we are strung up in a semantic definition tangle, and it appears that I assumed a few things I shouldn't have (sorry!). I'll move on to the meat in your response: > Sorry - I should have said, "because it's obvious to me that it's right to > do so..." The question still stands. Why is something obviously right? > "Just punishment and desert" really means that if you sin, you will be > punished, because you deserve it, doesn't it? Then the reason you don't > sin is to avoid punishment. I think it's splitting hairs to say whether > that's not fear of punishment. NO! We must consider the concept of Desert outside of its possible deterrent effects. As it has been said (by both Christians and non-Christians) here on the net, Desert as a deterrent amounts to forced morality, which isn't morality at all. If the real reason you don't sin is to avoid punishment, then the concept of Desert has no meaning. The usual Humanist response to this is that just punishment and Desert amounts to little more than revenge. I would then ask how they justify using the word "deserve" (i.e., "I deserve a vacation"). More, what are your concepts of justice? punishment? Desert? -- David Norris :-) -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david