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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Religion / Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? (2244 Views)
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Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by obinna58(m): 1:40am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:Meaning u an atheist This thread should have been more of enlightenment rather than debate I'm more concerned about religionists. Will be following through |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by jonbellion(m): 1:40am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Are you a deist? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 2:21am On Apr 25, 2017 |
jonbellion: Lol. I am not Muslim either. So essentially your point is that along with empathy, we can categorize an action as being morally impermissible if such action causes pain to others. How about if killing someone, although acknowledging the fact that it would cause him pain, would prevent the suffering and death of other people? How about if killing someone could potentially preclude the suffering of a large number of people? How do you define what's right and what's wrong in this case? Is it justifiable then to sacrifice the lives of a small number of people in order to prevent the suffering of a larger number of people? How about if a person possesses a need to kill and this need is predicated on a strong desire to obtain a certain profound and ineffable kind of gratification, or the obsessive, overwhelming need to satisfy an unquenchable, consuming, overpowering vindictive urge, and the inability to carry out this desire imposes a huge amount of suffering and psychological distress on this individual? Distress that could lead him to take his life, or engage in other acts that could potentiate the infliction of pain and suffering on others, especially his family and friends? What's the moral high ground in this scenario? What if the person he wants to kill is someone that doesn't have any loved ones and hence wouldn't be missed and his death wouldn't affect anyone? Going by your arguement, isn't the possible infliction of pain on innocent people and the extreme amount of suffering the individual is experiencing enough justification to kill this other one single person, since the amount of pain caused by killing just this person doesn't amount to the one that would be caused by not killing? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by felixomor: 2:26am On Apr 25, 2017 |
I dont know the owner of this thread, But I must confess, your questions are far reaching and teaching people how to think..... Kudos |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 2:29am On Apr 25, 2017 |
felixomor: You are welcome. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by sekundosekundo: 4:24am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 7:18am On Apr 25, 2017 |
OP, I need you to define "Murder" then we can continue |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by chemystery: 7:22am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:So until i give an answer you expect, i havent answered your question abi? The answer to your question is there, you only want to look the other way. Maybe cos you haven't seen anything to hold on to and you want me to manufacture one for you |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 7:36am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord: The willful killing of a person or persons. 1 Like |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 7:42am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101: the word "willful" means "intentional", do you agree with this or you have your definition of it which differs in any way? we need a very common ground to start this debate |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by chemystery: 7:46am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord:His question is why is murder wrong. If you finish answering his questions please answer my own too. why is a circle round? Why does square have four sides? 1 Like |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 7:47am On Apr 25, 2017 |
chemystery: Hehehehehehehehe, I understand you well 1 Like |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 7:50am On Apr 25, 2017 |
chemystery: You know what I think? I think you are an example of those kind of atheists who are susceptible and credulous to being influenced by beliefs others hold, or a certain kind of attractive ideology, especially if those beliefs and ideologies help further their goal, or provide them a more morally relaxed framework to conduct their lives. So in this respect you share a lot of similarities with religious folks. You obviously didn't become an atheist by carrying out a dispassionate, critical examination of religion, because from your response on this thread, you seem to lack the ability to not just think for yourself and make independent opinions on abstract issues, but you also seem to lack the tools to engage in intelligent, civilized discuss on critical topics. 1 Like |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by chemystery: 7:50am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord: |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 7:53am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord: I agree that the word "willful" is synonymous to the word "intentional." |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 7:56am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101: good, we are heading somewhere so you're asking why intentional killing of another human is wrong? I don't believe intentional killing of another human is wrong |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by chemystery: 7:57am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:argumentum ad hominem ) This is your destination and i have made you arrive there. I hope your heart is gladdened right now? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 8:17am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord: Why do you have this view? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Wilgrea7(m): 8:19am On Apr 25, 2017 |
finally.... the kind of thread I've been waiting for... hopefullandlord has arrived |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 8:23am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101: because its not wrong for me to shoot to kill someone trying to shoot to kill me and it fits into your definition of "Murder" I think the difficulty you're having here is that you haven't defined "Murder" in clear terms and I know the reason for the difficulty but I won't let the cat out now you have a chance to tweak or change what you define as "Murder" so we can make a clear progress |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 8:41am On Apr 25, 2017 |
hopefulLandlord: I have defined murder in it's most basic term. I can't present a definition of murder that is anchored to different possibly justifiable or unjustifiable scenarios or circumstances like the one you just gave. That would be really tedious, and sincerely impossible to do, because despite having thought about this subject rigorously, I can't claim to have introduced every possible instance of murder into this framework. So I think it's wiser for anyone who wants to reply to my thread, to answer in the negative or affirmative, and give reasons for their answer, and if they have a nuanced opinion on the subject, they should provide it and I will address it. Contrary to your view, I don't have any agenda in asking this question besides curiosity and my love for truth and debate. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by hopefulLandlord: 9:06am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101: I've not implied in any way that you have any agenda or are you having guilty conscience you can help yourself by showing where I've implied any agenda to you thing is, I'm not the type that just jumps in and starts debating when we haven't made a baseline, we need to agree on certain terms first before we can have a (reasonable) debate, I learnt this from my earlier Nairaland days in which I and a Christian were saying the same thing but we had differed in terms from the beginning, 2 pages later we realised the mistake and I've since then made it a point to always agree on terms first and debate based on those terms second and never to just ignore differences in terms and jump in the debate the word "Murder" as defined by you isn't clear enough I'm afraid because I can think of many instances which I'll agree murder is "Right" going by your definition, so I think its best I leave unless you give a clearer definition, the ball remains in your court........... |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by CatfishBilly: 9:07am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:People who lack empathy have a diagnosis. They're psychopaths. It's a personality disorder. A huge number of serial killers have been shown over time to exhibit psychopathic behavior. So, murder has so much to do with empathy, not morals. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 9:36am On Apr 25, 2017 |
CatfishBilly: So do psychopaths have the moral responsibility to not kill since they don't express empathy? If the moral proscription of murder is anchored delicately to atheism, then shouldn't psychopaths be free to kill? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by CatfishBilly: 10:05am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:Morality is subjective to an atheist. Atheists choose/make their morality and this morality is driven by empathy. So, an entity that lacks empathy can't be moral in the atheistic sense, so morality is no inhibiting factor in the murderous drive of a psychopath. If morality trumps empathy, we won't be having Christian serial killers, since theists like arguing that morality is woven with the word of God and their religion. 2 Likes |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 10:59am On Apr 25, 2017 |
CatfishBilly: So are killings by psychopaths justifiable on this basis? |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by CatfishBilly: 11:32am On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:Nope. They go against the societal views of morality/empathy, even if they can't connect to that empathy due to their personality, it still doesn't justify it. I know this view would lead to some more debates. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 3:10pm On Apr 25, 2017 |
CatfishBilly: So the justification for what's morality correct is more of what society deems as morally permissible than an individual's personal view of morality as it applies to him, based on his uncontrolled inability to conform to the shared basis that informs the general public's notion on morality? I tend to see certain problems with this idea. Let's use a hypothetical psychopathic sexual sadist as the focus of our debate. As you know, a sexual sadist derives pleasure from inflicting pain on other humans and this need is entirely not within his control. And as you rightly stated, due to his psychopathic characteristics, he'd also lack the ability to express empathy for his intended victims. Now, going by your argument, isn't it a clash of moral values, if the promotion of a certain moral value, violates another moral value, since society also espouses the moral value of not infringing on the happiness others? And isn't your argument implictly nested in the notion that the moral values that society promotes are the values that are founded upon traits that are expressed by majority of the population, excluding amd stigmatizing that of the fringe minority? And I also find that the pathologizing of certain traits like psychopathy and redefining it as an anomaly, and even constructing moral systems that disfavor and completely criminalize the behaviors expressed by these individuals by dint of traits that are predominant in society, a bit problematic. Because if this is the case, and hypothetically, say hundreds of years into the future humans evolved a new brain structure that promotes psychopathic traits, which leads to the prevalence of these kind of traits over empathic traits, across global populations, under the framework of your argument, it would be morally permissible to kill. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by CatfishBilly: 3:33pm On Apr 25, 2017 |
Stewie101:Like I pointed earlier, I said my view would raise more debates and that is exactly what you're doing right now. The legal framework of what's morally acceptable is rooted in empathy, but it's also a democracy, what the majority says, that's what would be adopted. It sucks, yea, but it's a democracy. Majority beats individualistic ideas. Psychopathy is classified as a mental illness by society, so we shouldn't let the mentally ill define our morality and make morality rules for us as a society. It's not a perfect system, but that's what makes the most sense. If in the future, psychopaths become the majority, yea, the laws of the land can be changed to favour them, it's a democracy. 1 Like |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by CoolUsername: 9:42pm On Apr 25, 2017 |
Murder is wrong, generally speaking. Mitigating circumstances do exist though. For example, murder during self defence, defense of another, consensual assisted suicide (euthanasia), abortion (if that can even be described as murder), etc. are, in my opinion sometimes necessary actions in life. That said, I do not support the death penalty because I don't feel we have a judicial system that is effective enough to take such an irrevocable decision. |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 9:39am On Apr 26, 2017 |
Stewie101:there are some things we inherently know are wrong an example is will you watch someone kill your beloved ones or will you watch them die from things you can stop the answer is no because unlike other animals we humans have exceeded our natural limitations and have been able to understand things from an unnatural view.Circumstances also influence our judgement for example I will kill anyone who tries to kill me because I know it's wrong for anyone to take my life and watch him go free while it's right for me to defend my self from such person |
Re: Atheists, Is The Act Of Committing Murder Wrong? by Nobody: 9:40am On Apr 26, 2017 |
CoolUsername: Let's say we had a strong judicial system, would you then support the death penalty? If you would, why would you? |
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