Mike Rutter’s Weblog…….

cheeky...

Sorry Nik. How could I miss out Dawsonplanet?! How could I deny the world this quality material.............

more to the point mike... why isn't my blog listed on your bloglist? you're just mean.
www.dawsonplanet.co.uk.
check out my ever expanding family!!!!

ok,ok! I'm dull too! I'm just a bit slow too, and can't understand your conversation.
How about we talk about something I understand? Like er... um... yikes. errr...
cowboys and indians?

Who's duller? The dull man, or the man who reads the dull man's comments?

Ok - sorry :) You must admit though - we may be dull but we are extremely intelligent

Hmmm, are you equating my family with interesting vegetables..........

:)

I must have fallen asleep about 3 times reading those comments. Man you guys are dull. Talk about it in the pub for all you're worth, but don't fill up space that could be taken up with nice pictures of the family and interesting vegetables and stuff.
Sheesh! I love you all btw.

I agree with all that Mike. I think absolutes are tricky though, there have been and are so many uses of 'absolute' truths or laws, which end up causing wars, crusades, murder, suicide bombings etc. In the end, we are human beings, some get beliefs from 'Truths' given by Buddha, some from Holy Law from Allah, some from commandments given by God and Jesus, some perhaps a mixture of all of them! Humans interpret these ideas of right and wrong and people see them differently - think of how much the church argues amongst itself about an issue like homosexuality.

I think people create their own 'right and wrongs' from all the experiences they have had in life, and it's up to us to ensure they are passed from generation to generation. Perhaps they will sometimes be altered as time passes (slavery, sexual equality) - can anyone claim to know what will be right and wrong for the rest of time? Perhaps they can, but what seems right to us now, may be seen as wrong in the future, and vice versa. I don't know if that is a problem or not, could standards of 'rightness' slip so we end up in a terrible state? I would hope not, but it's impossible to say for sure. But I am fairly sure that religions / regimes who follow their 'absolute' truths certainly don't always get it right, and sometimes commit terrible acts under the name of their truths.

Hmmm. Interesting topic!

No - you're right, if I hadn't gone to the match I probably wouldn't have even known the 2 teams were playing!

I would hope that people who feel strongly about stuff would be able to stand up against it as well. I think the question is where do we get our understanding of what is right and wrong from (something we have probably talked about as well Matt - I would guess after a few pints :) ) Maybe we could argue that it doesn't matter where we get our understanding from, just that we do what's right , but then one person's right might be another person's wrong. How do we know if there are no absolutes? There are some things I guess most would agree were wrong- like the Nazi regime in the 2nd world war. What amazes me is that whilst we can see that it was wrong because time has passed and we can look at it objectively- so many people went along with it. Why couldn't they see it was wrong? I'm sure there are a whole load of reasons and it is impossible to simplify it, but I suspect that one big factor was the sense of belonging - which is how my thinking started. Germany was struggling economically and along comes a bloke who tells the people that they are great and that the reason they are struggling is because of a race of people that have 'drained' the country. He then says that if they join togther and have a sense of pride together in their country - get back to 'true' Germany then things will get better. This they do and things do get better - at least for white germans. Where there had been disarray and a lack of pride in belonging to their country there was now prosperity, a sense of greatness about being german, a sense of belonging to something that was good. Of course we look at it now and because we see it for what it was we see it as very wrong - but I wonder how we would have felt if we were living as a german in those times? It also makes me think and worry about some things we hear said now in the UK about immigrants- such as they are taking our jobs or lets get back to 'true' britishness. I wonder if that's how things started in Germany - just quiet mumblings that slowly became louder and louder.

Well - I could go on - but I need to save some space for other posts! Anyone else want to comment?

And here's me thinking you'd deleted my comment cos you didn't like it!! I wondered if I'd said something to offend! Can't remember what it was now though.

I've copied and pasted Matt's comment from the old server. It should come after the 'Easter Hols' post but I can't get everything right......

Matt said,
April 6, 2007 @ 9:34 am

I agree Mike, the need to belong is very powerful, but doesn’t it depend on how strongly you feel about something, or how strong you are as a person? I guess you’re not a huge supporter of the Rhinos, otherwise you would have been less inclined to switch your allegiance so fickly!

In the same way, I would hope that people who felt strongly about what is right could stand up to immoral regimes, and not just go along with the crowd. (Even without a ‘Holy Law’ to guide them!? - Remember our discussion?)