The Pontiff Is In...

On Comparse they are having a discussion about philosphy , albeit it at a barbarian level. I had a go at trying to join up life the Universe and evrything. I know what I mean...does anyone else ?

I would simply like you to give me an example of what the human species has contributed OUTSIDE of our own species that would justify your claim that humans are agents for moral good.( Said A.N. IDIOT)

The Indian Tiger`s diminishing numbers are causing somewhat more distress than the demise of the Giant ground sloth 70,000 years ago, precipitated by innocent primitives.We are getting better at empathising then , worse at being selfless and brave though .We shall se no more Protestant martyrs and far more recanting ,( The Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh recently said that there hasn’t been an Archbishop of Canterbury pious enough to be worth killing since 1645) .. .
Humanists saw morality as a 'phenomenon' not a verity, given meaning by culture and evolving upwards paradoxically approaching ,the divine.
Its difficult to argue that anything outide man has a moral purpose . Either it "Nature" or "God" "picks them arbitrarily( so murder might be good) or it cannot supply them .In fact it is not property of a “Moral” to be given as it contains the meaning eternally present .( JS Mill….and then Bertrand Russell).

Morality cannot be approached as an absolute but must be treated as if it were .The universe is indifferent to the feeling of humans moral or otherwise we create out own value between us through shared understanding . This is the value of custom by which we learn both to play and listen.That quality which results, we call music, and morality is akin to this .It may be provisional but reaches towards the state of angels. This odd bathos between the particular and the immense is clear to us in tawdry pop songs and moments of solitary sublimity

It is because Conservative believe that people are innately capable of great goodnes that they are happy to allow independence. They are however 'fallen', and outside the fortifying effects of culture the exchange required for each stagnates. It is a dynamic vision of man thinking and doing in community family and love . It is not an individual in society moved by rules like a cog in a machine.

The contemplation of God is the contemplation of what a man could be at best, and buttresses individuals in ,for example ,a Chistian tradition. The humanist George Elliot was kind to churchmen in the tales of Clerical life for this reason . The step forward came from the human heart though.. Maggie Tulliver. She is the clearest expression of this humanist system derived from Feuerbach. Conservatives also locate this spring of goodness in the individual and not the economy on the rare occassions they allow metaphysical speculation( aso as not to interprupt either Dinner or work ....life).

The Classical account of men is as buckets , incapable of anything of worth unless organised into patterns . The romantic view is that each is a 'well' and of limitless depth. Conservatives are romantics, for us men are candles illuminating the world, for the socialists they are mirrors reflecting their surroundings .

Philosophical miserableness , stoicism , nihilism and spiritual ( not pragmatic) scepticism all lead to the view that only the imposition of order will suffice No wonder this the life hating , paranoid Nixonite figure of Gordon Brown appeals to every cowardly pessimistic fibre of the nation. The golden browed young prince Cameron offers another way. Hope for the future .

Its not to late to turn from the dark side even now and help make a country for men and women who are not only not units of production.