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→Occult (moved from Talk:Mulan: reply to Ed Poor
==Occult (moved from [[Talk:Mulan]]==
==Occult (moved from [[Talk:Mulan]])==
While most of WilsonB's edits have been reverted, I have taken a look at the article based on one of his criticisms and he seems to have been warranted in his objection to this (though not his rudeness). This is a Disney film about ancient China - it makes no more sense to call this "occultic" than it does to decry The Beauty and the Beast for having a talking clock or candelabra. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 23:50, 31 December 2009 (EST)
While most of WilsonB's edits have been reverted, I have taken a look at the article based on one of his criticisms and he seems to have been warranted in his objection to this (though not his rudeness). This is a Disney film about ancient China - it makes no more sense to call this "occultic" than it does to decry The Beauty and the Beast for having a talking clock or candelabra. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 23:50, 31 December 2009 (EST)
:::We've opened a can of worms, so let's be good biologists and classify them instead of throwing them under the plow. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 10:44, 20 January 2010 (EST)
:::We've opened a can of worms, so let's be good biologists and classify them instead of throwing them under the plow. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 10:44, 20 January 2010 (EST)
::::Wow, this discussion has just taken a different trajectory entirely. I've taken the liberty of moving the whole discussion here (as well as to keep such adult discussions away from the talk page of a children's movie).
::::But, to answer your question, it's my understanding that morality is the general principle of right vs. wrong, and ethics is defined as morality in a particular situation (eg. what is appropriate between teachers and students, doctors and patients, etc.). You seem to define them oppositely. In your example, you're making your job easy by citing an extreme situation. I hesitate to go too deep into this worm-bucket, but there a couple of general principles which seem necessary in judging the ethical dimensions of this:
::::*How are the categories of "child" and "adult" defined by the culture in question? To pick a less extreme example, [[Romeo and Juliet]] were not at the "Age of Consent" as we judge it now, but in their society they were considered adults. Therefore, it would not be constructive to judge this situation by today's standards. But we would definitely frown on a marriage of a 13 and 15-year-old today, because our definition of adulthood has changed due to changes in our lifestyle. For all we know, a 15-year-old male was very mature in those days.
::::*The other danger in analyzing this situation is the differing nature of "consent" in different cultures and times. In ancient cultures, a girl was the property of her father until she became the property of her husband. This is abhorrent to us today, but we're also on the other side of the [[Magna Carta]], the [[American Revolution]], and the women's rights movements.
::::*The logical problem when judging these situations from a Christian perspective is that even Christians have changed their sense of ethics in the last two thousand years. Slavery has been determined wrong in the last 150 years, and Christians believe so with everybody else. There are many bright ethical lines that Christians believe in today which either are not mentioned, or are even condoned in the Bible. It's a cop out to on one hand say, "this un-Christian culture is doing something wrong according to my Christian world-view" and on the other say "well, maybe the Bible says that, but we do differently today." On the other hand, we can use examples for the past constructively to explain why we believe the way we do.
::::Back to the original topic: the "occult" is a western concept, and therefore by definition excludes non-western cultures. That was my point. [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 09:12, 21 January 2010 (EST)