₦airaland Forum

danvon:
Where did I mention communists?

You mentioned Stalin who was a communist dictator. I also mistakenly thought Neitsche was one of them.

danvon:
What is your source for morality?

There is no “source” of anyone's morality. Rather, there are a multitude of factors which influence your moral judgments as a person. Asking for the “source” of someone's morality is like asking someone “what is the ingredient in your soup?” or “what is the food that you eat?”

The strongest ‘argument’ that religious apologists have against atheism is to define atheism as something that it is not. Strong atheism doesn’t mean having no morals. It means holding a belief that there is no God. Weak atheism means not holding a belief in God.

The most “extreme” atheists are gentlemen like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. The Communists don’t fight for atheism but for communism.

Moved to Agriculture section.

Can the spiritual realm cause an amputated leg to grow back in the physical realm?

Martinez19:
They are equivalent in the aspect that they don't change regardless of what people think. Morality is not just a belief or idea, I believe that it's something we are born with and it's governed by reasoning and empathy. The difference in moral norms across all places and history is due to influence of religious and cultural upbringings (both of which are usually merged together and influence reasoning).

I think the word "morality" is problematic because it can mean so many things that are not exactly the same. Moral norms. Moral codes. Moral principles. Moral philosophy. Moral behaviour. Moral judgement. This causes us to have disagreements that are purely based on definitions.

The core of morality is the judging of actions to determine whether they are appropriate (good, right) or inappropriate (wrong, evil). This judging can be done individually or collectively. So many different things can influence our judgment of actions including all the things that have been mentioned on this thread. Morality involves anything that can be influence our judgment of actions. Reasoning, empathy, laws, religious beliefs, tradition, peer pressure, social norms, philosophical reasoning, cost/benefit analysis, etc. All these things affect our judgment of actions.

Update: Seems that there are two threads on this topic. Yikes.

johnydon22:
Subjectivity means something is a matter of individual belief
Objective means something is independent of belief
but Intersubjectivity means something is a matter of a large collection of individual beliefs.

But how do we apply it to morality because it seems quite apparent that human beings don't have the same opinions about what is moral or not. This is something that is not debatable at all; it's an obvious fact. This makes me feel that I do not understand the topic at all.

Martinez19:
When people say morality is subjective, they mean that an action or deed is moral if an individual deems it so

Obviously, nobody believes this. Nobody here would say that, "if a terrorist believes that suicide bombing is moral, then that makes it moral".

ie. what is moral depends on what an individual deems moral and what's moral for one can be immoral for another

If the highlighted statement means that what one person considers to be moral may be different from what another person considers to be moral, then it's an obvious fact that we all know. That's why this debate is so challenging for me to get into. I must be missing something.

When people say morality is objective, they mean that what is moral is not dependent on an individual's perspective. Saying morality is objective means what is good is good regardless of how people choose to see it.

I don't get it. How can we conclude that something is good if no person sees it as good? How can we find out if something is 'objectively' moral?

Martinez19:
I discovered that atheists are divided on whether morality is objective or subjective. I would like we atheists to discuss this. Is morality objective or subjective? Why

Can you describe what it means for morality to be objective or subjective? I feel that a clear and generally accepted definition of subjective and objective morality will quickly clear up our apparent disagreement.

johnydon22’s intersubjectivity idea is awesome, but I would use the word “collective” to describe it. But first let’s define the terms so we can be sure that we are talking about the same things.

In the first case, I don’t believe that the family didn’t consult any Alfa for 5 years. They must have been consulting Alfas all along and when the problem finally went away by itself, they assumed that the last Alfa who ‘treated’ him was responsible for the improvement.

In the second case, I don’t think we have enough information to figure out what was wrong with the woman, so it’s difficult to say if she has been cured, not to mention figuring out what actually cured her. I suspect that the reality is quite similar to the first case.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume that these stories are 100% true, the logical conclusion we can draw from them them is that some Alfas have medical skills. We cannot conclude that these skills are spiritual. Many modern medicines were originally discovered by scientists in herbs used by traditional healers.

Tampinu:
Numbers 6 is where Moses was asked by God to tell Children of Israel ...

Sorry, I was referring to Numbers 12:3, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" LOL

triplec93:
That was because Miriam was the instigator.

The passage (Numbers 12) does not say that. You just made it up.

Have you noticed that, in chapter 6 verse 3, Moses calls himself the most humble man in the world?

Source of photos?

TATIME:
Jesus said TRUE worshipers will worship in SPIRIT and TRUTH. John 4:24 Have you ever wondered why so many people claims to be Christians yet as you go from place to place their beliefs totally contradicts one another? Well if you must know, they're not worshipping the One and only true God.

Nope. Jehovah’s Witnesses have the same beliefs because they belong to the same organization. The same can be said of other global Christian denominations like the Roman Catholics, Foursquare Gospel Church, RCCG, etc. You read the same Watchtower books and the same governing board rules over all of you with an iron fist. This is in no way a sign that your version of Christianity is the true one. Do you get me?

elshanAutos:
Did she keep to her fathers warning initially? How did the cobra bite her?

She kept his warnings. The cobra snuck into the house, hid under the fridge, and bit her while she was sweeping. Not that it matters.

Once upon a time, there was a man in a snake-infested town who lived with his beloved, playful, fearless, tomboyish daughter who for some reason had no natural fear of snakes. For her protection, he warned her against touching, playing with, staying close to, or even eating snakes, dead or alive. He basically warned her to abstain from snakes in any way, shape or form, so that no harm would come to her.

One day, while her father was away on family business, she was bitten by a deadly cobra and rushed to the hospital. Luckily, they had some cobra antivenom and wanted to administer it to her, but she rejected it. When asked why, she explained that from her biology class, she knew that antivenom was produced from snake venom, therefore she could not accept the antivenom because her father warned her to abstain from snakes. So she died.

Question: When the man returned to his dead daughter, do you think he was happy that she chose to die instead of potentially indirectly technically violating his instruction to abstain from snakes, which was actually intended to protect her life?

duduade:
These banks slammed with such high fines she people no go close accounts for there...

Will these banks still stand after paying their debts

For 4 banks, N5.8 billion isn’t that much.

What does God require in order to consider a marriage to be valid, so that having sex won't be a sin? Do you have to have a public ceremony in the church building? Do you have to register your marriage with the government at a registry? Is traditional marriage considered valid in God's eyes. Because marriage existed long before all these things. So what is the essential element that causes God to give you a green card for sex?

Because in Genesis, it seems that once a woman moved into a man's house and he started calling her his wife, then she was his wife. Simple. From this perspective, the "sin" of cohabitation before marriage seems like something silly that we created by making marriage so complicated.

jidestroud, I've noticed that the tomatoes you have most success with (Rio Grande, Cherry tomatoes) are known for their ability to set fruit in warmer weather. I have tried Shoprite's Roma and Starke Ayres Roma VFN at various times. They flowered but never set fruit. Not even once.

Question for Jehovah's Witnesses:

Imagine a scenario where the Governing Body sent a directive saying that it had been revealed to them through prayer and a better understanding of the bible that that their prohibition of blood transfusion was wrong. That they had come to understand that saving lives was more important to God than obedience to ceremonial rules. That Jesus had declared all foods to be clean, anyway. That from that moment, Jehovah's Witnesses who needed blood transfusions to save their lives were encouraged to accept them and would not be punished in any way.

Now let's say that some days after they gave the above directive, a young child who was very close to you was hit by a car and rushed to the hospital. While she was lying unconscious, the doctors informed you that in addition to her serious injuries, she had lost 40% of her blood and her chance of survival without a blood transfusion was basically 0%, but with a blood transfusion and proper treatment she had a 70% chance of survival. As the next of kin or guardian, it was up to you to decide whether or not to allow the doctors to give her a blood transfusion.

What would you do in that scenario?

cc: OneJ, JMAN05, eyinjuege, blezzy080, triplec93, achorladey, finest0007, capitalzero, etc.

This is an unforced error. Nigerian voters are certainly not ready for weed legalization.

rekinomtla:
In the same way people can explain why they think chocolate tastes better than vanilla, doesn't make chocolate objectively better tasting than vanilla. Thats basically how atheists view morality, just preferences.

There are some things in life that we just have to accept whether we like them or not. For example, that bad things often happen to good people. That death is inevitable. And that objective morality, as attractive as it may sound to those who want everything to be black and white so they don’t have to think, does not exist.

Religious morality is not objective. Christians and Muslims differ on whether is wrong to murder people for drawing cartoons, even though they worship the same God of Abraham. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Catholics disagree on whether blood transfusions and contraceptives are good or evil. Deeper Life and Christ Embassy disagree on whether it’s a sin for women to wear trousers. Joyce Meyer believes God called her to be a pastor but other Christians believe that God doesn’t want any woman to be a Pastor.

Religious people may believe that God’s morality is objective, but since they have no objective means of figuring out what God considers to be moral or immoral in every situation - because their religious texts can be interpreted in numerous conflicting ways - the morality of religious people is also very subjective.

Objective morality is a fantasy.

Why is causing more harm than good, limiting people's freedom and happiness etc morally wrong? Many societies that practiced slavery for thousands of years didn't seem to think so.

Limiting people’s freedom and happiness unnecessarily is wrong because most people wouldn’t want that to be done to them. If we didn’t know whether we would be born to slaves or slave owners, we would all prefer to live in societies without slavery. Causing more harm than good, if practiced widely, leads to a shittier society. I don't want to live in a shitty society. Do you?

So adultery isn't wrong when both the husband or wife are open and happy to engage in it. So is prositution or pedophilia always wrong or are their situations where it is morally acceptable?

Adultery in most cases is wrong because adulterers break the promise of fidelity that they made to their spouses. If both spouses agree to see other people, then no promise is broken when it happens.

Prostitution is wrong when the prostitutes or their customers are married or attached and their partners haven’t agreed to let them engage in the act. If prostitutes and their customers are single or in open relationships, and they use condoms to slow the spread of sexual diseases, what’s the problem?

Reasoning about morality is quite easy once you drop the authoritarian model of morality where things are classified as right or wrong because “God said so”. Freethinkers come to the same conclusions on moral issues far more often than you would expect. Without the divisive influence of religion (and politics), it’s actually much easier to come to agreement on moral issues. We are all human beings, after all. It’s amazing.

OneJ:
Seun, "Jesus declared all foods to be clean" , if U were served a tasty dish of jellyfish & jollof rice, U go eat ?

Don’t ask me, ask Jesus, the author of your salvation. He is the one who declared all foods to be clean. Do you follow Jesus, or do you follow the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

rekinomtla:
This should have gotten a false as well for the very same reasons you said the other statements were false, but since it paints atheists in a positive light you decided to let it slide.

It is true for the majority of atheists. After escaping from religion, people tend to rely more on logic and reasoning.

How in the world is what he said "immoral" when atheism implies moral relativism? He may just be from a society where it is considered morally ok to hate atheists.

It is immoral to me. Whenever people say that something is immoral, that’s precisely what they mean.

As an individual, I can explain why I believe an act is immoral and get other people to agree with me so that collectively we can find a way to discourage other people from engaging in the act. The only difference between us is that you feel the need to use scriptures to support your moral views and I do not. As far as I’m concerned, if an act causes more harm than good, takes away or limits people’s freedom and happiness, is unfair, needlessly cruel, very stupid, etc, then it’s probably morally wrong. Something that is wrong in most scenarios, such as adultery, may be acceptable in some scenarios, e.g in an open marriage. Morality at its best involves the active use of our big brains as social mammals.

hammer6F:
A man declares himself god wen he becomes ATHEIST.

False. Obviously.

He loses compassion and empathy

False.

becomes dependent on Logic and reasoning.

This is a good thing, and it doesn’t stop you from having compassion and empathy.

Atheist are not guided by any principle

False. Atheists are guided by their personal moral values, empathy, peer pressure, the laws of the land, etc. just like most religious people.

and are possibly the most dangerous set of human being on earth.

Utterly false.

I hate Atheist people.

As an atheist, it's my privilege to inform you that it is immoral to hate people just because they don’t follow your religion. Desist from this!

The Jesus of the gospels would have supported the eating of blood if he thought it would benefit his disciples, not to mention transfusions:

Mark 7:14-19: Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

To me, this is an open and shut case. Regardless of the political decision of Acts 15, Jesus himself declared all foods to be clean. Even blood.

cc: OneJ, JMAN05, eyingueje, capitalzero, and achorladey, triplec93

eyinjuege:
What caught my interest in this thread was the mention of Serena Williams. I felt it was unfair to just assume the problems she faced post partum/delivery was because of her JW beliefs

Well, it was a honest assumption. And as someone said, it doesn't matter anyway since many other people have died over this doctrine.

when it clearly wasn't and had nothing to do with blood transfusion.

Unless Serena Williams doctors release a statement saying they never considered giving her a blood transfusion, you don't know that for a fact.

When it comes to people's life choices, it's theirs. When it comes to people's beliefs, it's also theirs. You may not agree with them, but provided they are not hurting anyone else then let them own it. We can't always make the right decisions every time.

When you commit suicide, you're not the only one who gets hurt. Your children, parents, spouse, friends, co-workers, etc are also hurt.

These people don't believe in receiving other people's blood, so what are the other practical options available for them?

Those options are only available to rich people in advanced countries. Like Serena Williams, I guess. Nigerian JWs who need blood are doomed.

Can a JW person live with themselves after being coerced into taking someone else's blood?

Nobody has advocated forcing anybody to take someone else's blood, so I don't know why you brought it up.

Can you make them not believe that again? Possibly, but definitely not by putting down their beliefs

I don't see how just accepting their beliefs will make them stop believing. There's nothing wrong with asking them to explain why they believe.

or by lying on one of their members just to prove a point!

It was a honest assumption and only Serena Williams and her doctors are in the position to conclude that it was wrong. We can only guess.

eyinjuege:
Serena never needed blood transfusion, and her medical complications had nothing to do with blood transfusion ...

She is on blood thinners, for life as it is.

She never at any point needed to be transfused.

Serena's problems after pregnancy had nothing to do with her JW beliefs. No correlation at all.

She had a lot of risk factors for developing clots and these all have nothing to do with her beliefs.

Her wound also broke down, and she had to be taken back into theatre to restitch it.

Again, nothing to do with blood transfusion,

I see what you did there. You used the facts that Serena shared about her case to lend credibility to your claim that her complications had nothing to do with transfusions. Random fact, baseless claim, random fact, baseless claim, rinse and repeat. It almost worked on me too. The fact is that you can't conclude that Serena Williams never needed a blood transfusion just because her publicists didn't explicitly say so. As an outspoken Jehovah's Witness, Serena Williams would never share any details of her story that would make the her beloved religion look bad.

Should she have been offered transfusion if she didn't need it?

You can't conclude that she didn't need a blood transfusion just because her publicists didn't explicitly say she did. She had multiple surgeries, each of which may have caused her to lose a lot of blood. And if she refused blood, this would have made things much more difficult for her. Also, as you mentioned, she was on blood thinners which means she probably lost a lot of blood when, as you said, her wound broke down.

I'm not a JW, I don't believe in their doctrine

It's difficult to believe that you're not a Jehovah's Witness claiming not to be a Jehovah's Witness in order to make us feel that you're unbiased.

Souless0:
You don't really understand. Being busy is not my problem. Before I met this woman, I was a busy bee. I have very important things to be busy with. But with the constant depression right now, I can barely concentrate on anything

Depression is a medical condition. Just go to a hospital and tell the doctor that you are experiencing depression. If the doctor says he doesn’t believe in depression, he’s a religious bigot, so just go to a different hospital. Your suffering is completely unnecessary. Your problem is treatable.

alBHAGDADI:
Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

1. It’s clear that abstain from blood only refers to eating or drinking blood, since there were no blood transfusions at the time.
2. God never asked non-Jewish Christians to obey the above rules. It was something church leaders came up with for political reasons.

alBHAGDADI:
If we claim to be followers of Christ who gave his blood for us, I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same for our friends.

Well said! Still waiting for the Jehovah's Witnesses to show up.

fratermathy:
I am not a Jehovah's witness but I think it is their belief that blood is sacred and represents life

Okay...

and therefore should not be transfused.

Error. I fail to see how the sacredness of blood leads to the banning of transfusions. Is the blood of Christ not sacred? Yet Christians drink it regularly. Because it is sacred, they don’t drink it just anyhow, but prayerfully and thoughtfully. Why can’t the same be done for transfusions?

Since they believe it and it is ultimately their choice what to do with their lives, we have no choice than to respect their beliefs and wonder in amusement from a distance.

1) It’s not entirely a choice. Jehovah's Witnesses who opt out of the mandated religious suicide, by accepting blood transfusions, will be shunned by all the Witnesses in their lives. Their friends, parents, spouses and children will stop talking to them. They will be totally alone.
2) Sometimes the 'choice' is made by an authority figure like a parent or husband, and the person whose life is at risk doesn’t get to decide.
3) When religious beliefs are causing harm, of which the worst is death, we absolutely have the right and obligation to investigate them.

Dear Jehovah's Witnesses,

When I heard that Serena Williams almost died during the birth of her child, I couldn’t understand why a strong and rich lady like her in a first world country would face such difficulties. When I learned that she is a Jehovah's Witness I immediately understood what the problem was.

Please help me to understand why blood transfusions are so bad. What makes you think that God is against life-saving blood transfusions? Why would God give doctors the wisdom to perform life-saving blood transfusions and then forbid his followers from accepting them?

Please don’t just copy and paste content from apologetics websites. Use your own words and reasons to explain what you personally believe.

See also:

1. If the JWGB changed their stance on blood transfusion and a child close to you needed one, what would you do?

2. Jesus declared all foods to be clean, according to the gospels. This would include blood.

OneJ:
Seun , the NL moniker," hairyrapunzel " alleged that "according to the watchtower, Jesus was disobeying Jehovah when he talked to Satan".
Kai !!!!!!!!

No, he was making a point that if talking to an apostate is against Jehovah’s will, then surely talking to Satan, who was the first apostate, is against Jehovah’s will.

I'm not surprised that someone whose series of lies & distortion of facts on NL, puts a big question mark on his integrity, sanity & credibility, would be so dubious to concoct such a lie.

Can you list some more examples of the distortion and lies that you are accusing him of putting on Nairaland?