Or Reverend, Minister, Brother, Father, Shaman, Pastor, Priest... I haven't really decided yet. But so far I like Magus best, so I'll probably stick with that
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Fair enough. I'm not sure that I agree, but I have the sneaking suspicion that my reticence still fits into your worldview. Your belief structure is robust.
On my sideline, I don't think that a responsibility would necessarily derive from a right. Responsibility frames the question differently . . . (and I recognize that I'm not being constitutionally literal when I pick this up). Suppose you have a "right to life." I think it's a pretty ridiculous right, all told . . . The blind, random forces of the reality can't be made to respect it; if you go swimming with alligators, you'll probably be eaten. Fall off a building and chances are good you'll splat. Basically, the universe at large doesn't recognize this "universal" right. It's invalid.
If we say, though, that as members of society we each have a responsibility not to kill, that re-frames the "right to life" into something that might be real. The essence of it is an implied culpability--you and you alone are to answer for your ability to respect or disrespect the responsibility, and it's possible to derive from it a social contract . . . that is, I will take responsibility not to kill you if you take responsibility not to kill me. This communication forms the foundation of modern society.
I was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel again. Jarod Diamond has some interesting things to say about religion--a lot of unflattering things, to be sure--but he also assigns it a function. That function is to provide a reason for people living in communities that are not based on kin-bonds not to kill each other (it's adaptive!). It's an interesting lens to view the world through . . . kind of brutal and evolutionary and wild and beautiful but scary as hell at the same time.
On my sideline, I don't think that a responsibility would necessarily derive from a right. Responsibility frames the question differently . . . (and I recognize that I'm not being constitutionally literal when I pick this up). Suppose you have a "right to life." I think it's a pretty ridiculous right, all told . . . The blind, random forces of the reality can't be made to respect it; if you go swimming with alligators, you'll probably be eaten. Fall off a building and chances are good you'll splat. Basically, the universe at large doesn't recognize this "universal" right. It's invalid.
If we say, though, that as members of society we each have a responsibility not to kill, that re-frames the "right to life" into something that might be real. The essence of it is an implied culpability--you and you alone are to answer for your ability to respect or disrespect the responsibility, and it's possible to derive from it a social contract . . . that is, I will take responsibility not to kill you if you take responsibility not to kill me. This communication forms the foundation of modern society.
I was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel again. Jarod Diamond has some interesting things to say about religion--a lot of unflattering things, to be sure--but he also assigns it a function. That function is to provide a reason for people living in communities that are not based on kin-bonds not to kill each other (it's adaptive!). It's an interesting lens to view the world through . . . kind of brutal and evolutionary and wild and beautiful but scary as hell at the same time.
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