Beagles the illogical tempter

It was probably late in July when I wanted to talk about the difference between the stoics and the utilitarianists with conservatives being stoics and liberals being utilitarianists where the former tend to think of a sin as being in the act  itself, that is certain acts were sins regardless of the circumstances or consequences, whereas the latter judged acts on their consequences to determine whether or not they were sins. 

But sin, an unfortunate word, so many different interpretations, but then all those words, those ethical words, those the difference between right and wrong words, they are all, well so loaded.  We could have a discussion on oh, baseball or hunting, whether or not this guy was a good shortstop or whether this or that was a better rifle, and perhaps it would evolve eventually into heated words, but not necessarily, but if it was some ethical question, emotions would quickly rise.

That whole ethical thing is close to the bone for us big apes with the enormous brain.  Little kids, even before they can talk, react to it, have a sense of what is right and wrong, religion and politics quickly grafted morality into their systems, and it's just big with us big apes.

I thought maybe it would be an aid to a logical discussion of morality if I could come up with a pretty good definition of sin.  I thought that defining it as doing something wrong even though you knew it was wrong, would be a good start.  But I didn't realize that Beagles was without sin, had never done anything he thought was wrong in his entire life. 

Frankly, I was a little suspicious of this, it just didn't seem likely, more frankly, I suspected rationalization, which I hate more than sin because sin is a logical thing whereas rationalizing twists logic into a mobius strip.

And then we were back into gay marriage.  Probably my fault, probably I brought it up.  Well I thought it was a good example of the difference between the stoic (homosexuality is a sin period.) and the utilitarian (homosexuals are no threat to the well being of the nation so let them have the same rights that straight people have). 

See you tempt me Beagles.  Sometimes you say that you will believe something is wrong until you can be convinced that it isn't.  And I foolishly take you at your word, much like Charlie Brown racing towards that football, present my meticulous logical case, and then, like Lucy pulling away the football, say you don't care about any stinking facts, you think it is wrong because you think it is wrong and that is your right and there is nothing to be done about it.

See here you have the discussion well framed 

By giving the same benefits to gays, the government is saying that gay marriage is just as good for the country as traditional marriage, and I disagree with that assertion. 

and then at the end you disagree.  One would well expect that this would be followed by a because, but there is no because because it's just because you think so.  So how does one discuss something with someone like that? 

This is kind of like gun control which I almost never discuss with you any more either.  The difference there was that you used kind of a shotgun approach, throwing out all these arguments from the NRA playbook whether they made any sense or not.  In this case you just say this is my belief and I am sticking with it come hell or high water or any hot air from anybody.

Fine.  I won't mention it again.  Quit tempting me by pretending to be a logical man.

The weekend is fast approaching and I have been meaning to reread that Lost City thing about sin.