I figure the bottom line is whether or not a person (or other conscious being) is treated in a way that accounts for its welfare.

A lady once told me that bullfighting is okay because bullfighting is cultural. Therefore, the right or wrongness of this act is relative.

If there was a way to ask a bull that was tortured during a bullfight how he feels about the matter he would probably say that the cultural/relative thing is nothing but human shi_ (as opposed to B.S.).

About 6 years ago I went to Spain with some family members. One day some of these members including my 2 nieces went to see the bullfights. They left early because my nieces didn't like what they were seeing and started crying. I don't believe there was anything relative about their response. They witnessed a cruel activity and responded accordingly.

I'll take my nieces heart-based response to what they saw over somebody's intellect-based justifications any day of the week.

 

I don't want to tell other people what to eat. It does annoy me when people catch fish and then throw them back in the water. Some of these people say that the hooks don't hurt the fish.

It isn't as if they actually know that hooks don't hurt fish. It is more of a matter of what they choose to believe so they can keep entertaining themselves through fishing.

I wonder if fish that are hooked and then thrown back in the water become traumatized in some way. They are reluctant to eat the food they see because they are afraid to get hooked again.

A morality based on love or PUL is not something new; it is what the Judeo-Christian faith is supposed to be about.  The two main tenets of faith that ES hears from departed people are: to love God and to love other people. 

In doing so, in my mind it is all about intent.  It is not a contest to see who can consciously step through the mine-field of life without unwittingly injuring any plant or animal.  We see, in nature, the most horrific scenes of life and death played out in the meadows and fields.  Do we associate evil with the spider who consumes the insect, or the coyote who eats the chipmunk?  Perhaps some do.  But the intent there is to do what they naturally do.

The earth-life system is in flux.  Life and death ebb and flow like a tide.  Now while I agree with not deliberately harming another, be it a man or an animal,  I disagree that common interactions with that we should feel guilty if we have to use pest control in one instance to rid a home of rats, or if we are driving and don't see an animal that we inadvertently run over that we are somehow damned for it.

Love is thought and action directed by loving intent.  The specifics of earthly life matter less.  What is the intention behind your actions?  If you breathe in an insect, there was obviously no intent to harm.  Further, the rest of the physical world is one of something eating and another thing doing the eating.  The frog flicks its tongue out at the insect.  It is not morally wrong.  It simply is. 

I would like to become a vegan for numerous reasons.   However, I believe that I can maintain a loving intent to others, and to God without doing so.  This is the basis of blessing and giving thanks for your meal that has entered into many religions. 

In brief then, I don't believe that PUL is a new morality; it is the only true morality, created by intent, thought and action.  It does set up a "right" and "wrong" action though - right being that which is the most loving action or response in a given situation.  This is why I personally abhor the "do as thou will" moral relativism that states that "everything is equally valid."   No, it isn't.  If love or PUL is our driving force, there is a true "good" and a true "evil," even if we have infinite time in spirit to explore the differences. 


Matthew

Hi Dave,

I don't think is it possible in all practicality to have a PUL-based morality in a physical realm such as ours where physical pain and suffering can be completely eliminated. As sentient beings the likelihood of pain and suffering will always exist because that is part of our built in feedback mechanism in the "push" to grow towards a consciousness of PUL. Like little worker bees, we, in the form of sentient beings, are in the process of evolving consciousness, and as such, I think the best we can do is strive to develop a moral code that evolves over time towards the aspiration of PUL as an ideal.

In another thread of yours that I read, but don't recall the title, you discussed a book where the author demonstrated how humanity has evolved over the past 2,000 or so years and despite what all the doomsayers of today have to say, morality has and is evolving for the betterment of human consciousness demonstrated and expressed by the resulting behavioral changes described in the book. That tells me that what we are doing is working even though it has been and will most likely continue to always be a struggle.

First of all, any moral code of conduct that presents any meaningful truth has to apply to all sentient beings equally as well as universally, regardless of cultural background. While we can discuss individual issues such as abortion, euthanasia, etc., I don't think any conclusions can be drawn without first defining a foundation for morality that applies to everyone personally.

As in Matthew's examples, any truthful and significant morality must be defined by the intent that directs an action. Any action that is honestly generated by an intent of loving and caring is moral, while the lack of love and caring of an intent causes one's actions to be immoral. Loving intent must be defined as an individual's attempt to act in a way that considers the overall best interest of all entities in a way that helps to maintain or improve the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of others. Immorality, on the other hand stems from negligence, carelessness, and harmful intent.

Kathy

KarmaLars:

I don't have a response to what you wrote because I don't want to turn this into a "eat meat or not eat meat discussion" because I don't believe that was Heisenberg's reason for starting this thread.

I like this idea of expressing PUL constantly.

As for morality, lately I've been struggling with it as  see it as a human invention, and not as a universal one. i.e. the creative forces in wider reality didnt invent it, and the possibility that they are amoral.

KarmaLars wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 3:54pm:


     I think you are somewhat correct KarmaLars, in that i do think that the younger Yeshua ate fish occasionally.   However, it's also clear to me that latter Yeshua DIDN'T EAT AT ALL.   In fact, if you read the N.T., you will see that at one point the disciples of this Teacher insistently asked and told him, Master why don't you eat, you need to eat. 

What was his reply, "I have food you don't know about." 

   Meaning, at that point, he was SO intune with PUL Consciousness that it kept his body alive and healthy without necessity of that called material food.  He lived off the food of Love.

Hmmm...  reminds me of Bob Monroe's "He/She" character.  Bob to "He/She", *but where do you eat and sleep?* 

  He/She to Bob, "Oh, i gave those up years ago." 

  So, perhaps your "point" is somewhat moot within a larger perspective and bigger picture.  Maybe one of the reasons that Yeshua and He/She stopped eating altogether was because they didn't want to contribute to the suffering of animals, because to some extent it may have kept their bodies somewhat stuck within earthly energies, and mostly because they just out grew the necessity...  ???

   Btw, you are always such pleasant and happy chap here, always so helpful.  Thanks for the apology btw for my Cycles of Change etc. thread and accusing me of being a liar and having that plainly pointed out as not true by another.  A real man would have apologized for such clear and proven slander. 

   I can't help but notice that you are someone who only posts once in a great while and solely for the purpose it seems to disparage and make fun of others and their beliefs and ways.

  Is it "fun" or something?  If you think us, or some of us as crazy and imbalanced, shouldn't you have compassion for us because who really *chooses* to be crazy and imbalanced?    Shouldn't you want to help us, and not add stress to our condition?   

  Or maybe you are more acting out of your own suffering and unhappiness? 

  And isn't that why Yeshua, The Teacher said so long ago, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."   We are always wounding others out of our suffering.  But at least in your case, you seem sincere in this process, and i have much more patience with those who are sincere in their negativity than those who are very insincere in their negativity.