Ethics is lodged within us all

COSMIC CURTAINS
Ethics is lodged within us all. Just as our makings are. We spring from a cosmic process  founded, science tells us, on a small collection of patterns. We discover these as we move in the same direction as the cosmos. The most obvious pattern is the least acknowledged. It is the inherent presence of ontological values  in every soul  on our small planet. Each action we contemplate is met by phalanx of blunt truths  that constitute the very center of ethics. Are we being tolerant? Are we being helpful? Are we being democratic? Are we avoiding idolatry?
What we call conscience is the presence of these ethical benchmarks within each of us. Each one can be shown to interact with the others. Each addresses the foundations of true progress, toward a cosmos that reflects the intended pattern for humankind,  set from the foundation. This is the "more" that Hamlet could have told.
If this seems overblown and arbitrary it is because of the mess that  we've made of ethics. We've lived by binary  either-or thinking which issued in narrowness, thoughtlessness and betrayal of the aesthetic mandate  to achieve beauty and truth in our living. The revolution of this century is the recovery of the ontological values within us all.
Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store 


Buffer

The Spectrum Nature of Humankind Trumps Original Sin

Original sin was a scapegoat cop out designed to leech from us all trace of dignity and make us prey to priestly ministrations likewise designed to make jelly of us The spectrum goes from primal to sublime and leaves us holding the bag for all we do not discluding our reaction to the so called acts of god We have the power to adjust our spots upon this spectrum  put the positives at any point to work for us That we now see a balance between this and the hoary ways of dampening religion is just a sign that says we may just finally come of age Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store



Buffer

Triadic Philosophy Ontology Non-Idolatry Community Unity

Ontology exists in the realm of reality

and is the seat of the three active values and their underlying value  

The three active values are tolerance democracy and helpfulness

The underlying value is non-idolatry

These are universal values that transcend 

creed or religion or any other limiting category 

Ontology embraces the stuff of reality
of being 

It is the substance of what is
The terms we use to describe what exists
are our feeble means of recognizing in being itself
the signs that point us to ways of being here and now

THE IMAGE TRIAD ABOVE
First Non-idolatry (Because of its status as ontological non-idolary is a first It is the willed iconoclasm that withdraws worship from any human idea notion person or object)
Second Community (Community is always a challenge to non-idolatry representing as it does obligations and ties and and other barriers to the exercise of the profound freedom that is the gift of non-idolatry)
Third Unity (Unity is the means by which  the conflict between non-idolatry and community can be resolved Unity of  all Unity within Unity of purpose Unity of understanding)
Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

There is a step beyond all religions as the world embraces universal spirituality

Pragmaticism was Charles Sanders Peirce's term for his evolved philosophy It was pragmatism with a step into reality which Peirce understood to be evolving Continuity was Peirce's keyword for the way reality expresses itself We move forward inexorably in chronological time My argument is that Peirce brought us to the threshold of the cyber-era  We are first generation all of us young or old The cyber era is based on the discovery within ourselves of values that can be inferred  as provable in practice I submit the following candidates tolerance helpfulness democracy non-idolatry These are the practical practiced values that make progress out of continuity   It is to the recognition of these values and their practice that pragmaticism leads
Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

Let's Get the Connection Clear - Big Oil =GOP = Attack Obama = Steal Election

Above the graphic the headline It speaks true Under Bush Cheney plotted with Big Oil and all the horrendous and demonic  unreality of the Bush era was Big Oil driven
The whole edifice of our economy is the product of the wedding of Big Oil  and the Military Industrial machine It dictates the shape and design of our society
To take it back we need to win this election if only to show that we can stand up and that democracy is an ontological value
We will not solve everything in the next four years but the next four weeks are as fateful as the last four weeks in 1968 when the final light of that time turned off  and Big Oil smiled
Oh did I tell you that Big Oil is a dinosaur that is extinct We have that as a consolation as we witness its final effort to do us in 
Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

The Tao embraces progress on its terms

The Tao embraces progress on its terms

Its terms are known within all souls

The values that cannot be compromised

Or trampled in the mud by lesser goals

Occupy Wall Street can be a values revolution

Don’t Mistake Occupy Wall Street for Team Obama | Common Dreams: "But they don’t own Occupy Wall Street anymore. That was evident Thursday morning, when the encampment began to fill with even more arrivals. And some of the new faces showing up in Zuccotti seem more representative of the working-class angst gripping the country."

Nietzsche correctly said that the task of all creative human beings is the revaluation of values. We can see this as skewering the values that have reigned hitherto. Among these is honor, which has become the talisman of competition, warfare and hierarchy. Those who seek a different focus turn not to specific religions but to the universal perspectives found in persons who are the antiphon of honor and other "manly virtues". One derives from such an exploration the values of non-idolatry, tolerance, democracy and helpfulness, a quadrilateral cluster of values which remain true whether one accepts them or not. They roll back nominalism and concede a place for eternal verities. And for the eventual triumph of reason. We have progress apace even in a world where hysteria is easily manufactured and even encouraged by our corporate advertisers. But the revolution underway will "honor" to the nomads of the universe who embrace no platform save these values and insist that the world conform to them in all that is done. A values revolution!


Global Online Privacy

Dear Egypt, tolerance is part of the package

Prime minister says Egypt 'scrambling' after at least 23 killed in clashes - CNN.com:

The four ontological values are non-idolatry, tolerance, democracy and helpfulness. When democracy is the only value and pushed to the fore, we forget that the value of tolerance is a protection against weakness that we all share. Tolerance is the strength to swallow what you do not personally like. When this value is suppressed the mob comes forth on all sides and the ancient principalities and powers play out their ancient games. And lives are lost. Carry forward with non-idolatry the root and add to democratic fervor and helpfulness the resolute and courageous value we call tolerance. It is something anyone at any time can will and it signals an inner freedom that is worth more than gold.

Global Online Privacy

Ontological Values Rule

Buffett's

Best advice

Is unconditional love

"It's not uncritical love"

Thus the Oracle of Omaha

My best advice is

Add nonidolatry tolerance

Helpfulness and

Democracy

Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

What are ontological values

New Tao Posts: The Tao set forth the values of this world:

If one proceeds from experience, one can deduce that the values that underlie all other values are first non-idolatry which leaves the ultimate free to be what it is without presuming to know all the answers and without giving first place to lesser deities human and imagined. Then democracy in terms of universal rights and equality accorded to all persons. Then tolerance as the necessity of accepting and not judging the behavior of others. And finally helpfulness as the human element in the great commandment - not humiliating with charity but enabling with constructive assistance. These values are ontological precisely because on reflection they are seen to be the engine of continuity of our universe. They are both sign and fruit of the mind's meanderings.


Global Online Privacy

In Nepal they steal the future

Futures Stolen | Human Rights Watch: "This 76-page report documents the hurdles that children with disabilities face in obtaining a quality education in Nepal. Some children with disabilities experience abuse and neglect at home and in their communities, making it harder for them to gain access to schooling. These barriers result in low attendance and high dropout rates for children with disabilities compared with their non-disabled peers."

Abuse begins at home. One solution is to be somewhat more careful about having children in the first place. Another is to embrace a non-lethal value system. All people are free to do that at any time.


Global Online Privacy

The tiny window of freedom upon which the world hangs

This is an original theory that is perhaps older than the planet Its time has comeThe only freedom human beings have is the freedom to choose the values they will live byThere are only four principal values that the enable us to make real progressThey are the root value of non idolatry Which means worship nothing giving first place to nothing save AbbaOr whatever your name is for one who lives within you waiting to be heardThere are three related interactive values ToleranceHelpfulnessDemocracy Seen as extending the same rights to allThe struggle of this century is to arrive at a philosophy that understands thisOh Freedom means one can make the choice now
Global Online Privacy

The benign face of us

ShortFormContent at Blogger: Signs are generals in waiting

The benign face of us

Could be the sign we need

To see that we are free

In one way only

To choose the very values that will

Speak what we will

Live by

That's the only way

That we can be


Global Online Privacy

Did Peirce have trouble living his own philosophy?

Charles Sanders Peirce ABC Poem - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

The fact is we all do

The universal toward which we move is love

Love as agape

Love for others

Peirce created a universalistic evolutionary framework

It moves the world forward

It is the most important thought since Aristotle

It is only now being parsed

But like Moses Peirce could not fully embrace the very truth he grasped

And like Peirce we too have feet of clay

So when the original sin trumpeters cry out they have a point

But Peirce delivers us from creedal religion

And we are happily liberated from the doctrine of original sin in favor of

Fallibility

The universal fallibility that means

Tomorrow is another day

And if at first you don't succeed

And all those other good Polonius cliches

Global Online Privacy

The Gospel of Mark Leads Beyond Creed

Charles Sanders Peirce my kindred spirit read Mark well

What emerges in Mark 

are values that trump those inherited 

from Aristotle and virtually all other philosophers and sages

Jesus rips away the dualistic frame 

the binary straitjacket 

and focuses us on universality

 and establishes that it is an inner reality

 and that with open eyes

 you can perceive and choose

 the values you act on

Rather than the characteristics 

Aristotle and others call values

 Jesus creates active values 

springing from one root and universal value

non-idolatry 

The active values inferred from the gospel of Mark 

are tolerance democracy and helpfulness 

Those who choose these values are already on Abba's way

                                                Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store

I would not call the past decade golden - misconceived is better

Defense Industry Faces Profit Losses As Golden Decade Ends: "In the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks, the annual defense budget has more than doubled to $700 billion and annual defense industry profits have nearly quadrupled, approaching $25 billion last year."

After 9/11 I immediately started writing something I titled Amnesia

It was the true account of how the President parsed 9/11 as a divine call for the end of war on earth

Not not a war on terror but a nonviolent revolution

Not for values of patriotism and strength and competition and conquering enemies

I have long since lost the mss

We never got its message

Or did we

Events since have proved its salience

There is never a guarantee that reason and salience will prevail

But there is a reasonable inference that ontological values will indeed supplant tawdry values like the ones noted above

So to struggle for democracy and tolerance and helpfulness non-idolatry is hardly a waste of energy

Revaluation of values rivals poetry as the most powerful force of all

Global Online Privacy

This is not a recession it is a watershed

This is not a recession it is a watershedA recession assumes we can do the same thing when it stopsThat is not the prospect exactlyWe are facing big decisions about how we will liveCreating a satchel for a journeyWhat to take what to jettisonIt is a values crisisWhat values shall we takeValues are free for the choosingValues can be changed in a nanosecondValues can be willed and affect behaviorThis crisis is about the need to revalue valuesIt has particularly to do with democratic revolution and the value democracy Global Online Privacy

Human beings make do with whatever they have

Human beings make do with whatever they have

To survive and to flourish as ever they can

Survival and values are two different things

That merge into progress according to plan

Global Online Privacy

Salmonella The Truth Will Out

Salmonella Surge Linked to Meat Giant - The Daily Beast

In a mass world where responsibility lies hidden and layered

It is never nonexistent

All who are responsible register their responsibility in the magnificent machinery Abba gives us

We call it mind or brain

Abba also lodges common sense and would seem to argue for

Transparency

Just in case the values that might create more safety

Are being displaced by other values

For we have the freedom to choose the values by which we live

It is the most precious of freedom for it means we can say yes and can say no

Global Online Privacy

A praiseworthy gesture

US to aid groups: Feed the starving, even if Al Qaeda gets collateral benefits - CSMonitor.com

On Abba's scale of values - the values I infer from a reading of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark - children and their well being rank as high as anything. This translates to the core value of helpfulness. But in the case of this situation, it also taps the core value of tolerance. Tolerance in this case is the strength to rise above a natural inclination to see these terrorists as they appear to be. For there is no greater evil than the callous disregard for life regardless who it comes from. The third core active value is democracy - the honoring of the preciousness and rights of all. If this is an honest account of US action, it is praiseworthy. Humanitarianism is a confession of the failure of these values to take sufficient root in human beings. We need to hold these values high against our inherited Aristotelian list of virtues which masquerade as values.


Global Online Privacy