> >And so you are saying that "the good" lies at the extreme "mind" end of
> >the matter-mind spectrum (or duality, if you want to restrict
> >yourself).
>
> When did I say that? Are we talking about good and evil or the values of
> martydom? Whichever you want to talk about is fine with me, but I need to know.
Huh. Here I'd thought that really these two were the same. Value here
is value there, right? And you "standards" for value-ableness should be
semi-uniform.
> > A thing has value only if valued because objects do have
> >have essences and thus are incapable of "being" good or bad or
> >_valuable_.
>
> Living things have essences, non-living things channel essence, they have
> none of their own.
Now this almost contradicts what you said before! If living things have
essences, does that mean they have value in and of themselves? If not,
what do you mean by essences?
> > It is only /us/ (the minds) that bring value to objects.
> >Before I go any farther, is this what you beleive, or have I
> >misinterpreted?
>
> I was only saying that there is a fine distinction between dying in a
> cause and dying for a cause. The only difference /is/ how much of
> yourself you have commited to the cause, how much of your soul, and that you
> have to value what you commit else it isn't truly commited at, only
> borrowed.
Like the Jesus thingy earlier: since Jesus /knew/ that he was going to
live happily ever after in Heaven after a mere three days in Hell, his
sacrifice on the cross was nothing too big. Just a token suffering.
Jesus may have been committed anyway, but the New Testimate does not
give us any really good evidence of this.
Anyway, in case I haven't made it clear already, I'm changing the focus
here from matyrdum to "value" which I see as a synonym for "Quality" and
"the good". This of course makes the question very very much bigger,
and I'm sure some philosophers have been over this territory before.
ERiC