₦airaland Forum

ijawkid: Ahhh!!!....another gay comes up.....

I still stick to my words that I hate the act,which in turn means I would never support gay marraige and gay couples wanting to own kids........

And when I said I hate the act and not the people that doesn't translate to me LOving homosexual practicers...........

Thank you!!!......

You obviously don't love them, at least publicly, considering the vitriol in your posts. That's why I say you were lying before, as you did claim to not have with them per se, just the act.

You behave as if one j.izzed in your breakfast, we suspect the problem is you want one to j.izz in your breakfast but can't admit it, hence this rabid behavior. Seriously, you now see pipis everywhere, calling anyone who disagrees with you ghey (as if it's an insult sef).

Anyways, I suggest you take care of the problem now, before you end up like one of these guys.

http://m.ranker.com/list/top-10-anti-gay-activists-caught-being-gay/joanne

These good hypocrites seem to particularly like boys sef. I suppose since they were afraid of men but needed relief they settled for boys. That's why I worry for you, it musn't get to that stage . Tell me where you are, as you're so scared of brahs I'll help you out by organizing a real, strong man to meet you and settle your problem. Do you have a picture I can upload unto a dating site?

ijawkid: Very soon the foolish government and those reprobates would be scrambling for the sanctioning of bestiality and marraige between man and animal all in the name of live and let's live......

And foolish nigerians here on nairaland are in support of this rotten arrangement called gay marraige..........

ijawkid: Hope you know you are an arrant fool??....

Why should gays even want children??...let them have sex and produce children......i-diots........

They are fighting for useless rights but want to have and raise kids which there union contravenes........

Would you look here, stroll outside religion only to find the resident closeted brah again on a thread about....gays.

This looks like pure, blind hate to me, of the unadulterated bigotry flavor. I remember you loudly, and repeatedly claiming to hate the sin but love the sinner. What happened to that? Or were you, like many pointed out to you, blatantly lying?

Uyi Iredia: Logic simply defined is the principles of correct reasoning. Logic is therefore something considered moral. It seems to me that Deep Sight was questioning why certain things which are advantageous (e.g stealing for money for one's upkeep) aren't considered moral.

Again, it is not.

Even going by your definition, as it's (ostensibly) advantageous to do certain immoral things, making the reasoning behind such acts seem correct, or logical, most people assume it would be logical to be immoral. Do you get it?

Here for instance, ds could assume it would be logical to steal in these scenarios, as logic supports the act. This is an act deemed immoral by modern standards, yes? In other words, strict application of logic, or doing what may seem reasonable, would lead to situations we consider immoral. Simply put; that it is logical to be immoral.

I may not have hard numbers, but I would DEFINITELY say this is the prevailing view of most of the world. Do you know how many people go around insisting that without the fear of hell fire we'd all be hedonistic rapine loving monsters? Why do you think that's the case?

musKeeto: Lol.

And again. Good job!

Reading a book, authors defense to some of his assertions about violence (that it's decreasing with time, especially in the west). Q and A's, interesting. The green bits are the ones directly related to religion/atheism per se.

Pinker FAQ: Skeptical Questions about Whether Violence Has Really Declined

Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history?

Probably not; see chapter 5, especially pp. 189–200. Historical data from past centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten.

Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace (chapter 5) and a New Peace (chapter 6) with unusually low rates of death in warfare.

Atheist regimes in the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Doesn’t this show that we were better off in the past, when our political and moral systems were guided by a belief in God?

This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.

First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist” ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.

Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia. See p. 677 for discussion and references.

Third, according to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White's Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world’s population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe (p. 142).

When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between thesistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights. On pp. 337–338 I present data from Rummel showing that democracies are vastly less murderous than alternatives forms of government.




Wasn’t the spread of Christianity the main historical force that drove down violence? Jesus preached love, peace, and forgiveness. The Spanish missionaries eliminated human sacrifice in Latin America. Abolitionism in the 19th century, and the Civil Rights movement in the 20th, were inspired by the morality of Christianity and led by Christian ministers. The two world wars show what happens when people depart from the teachings of Christianity.


Jesus deserves credit for stigmatizing revenge, one of the main motives for violence over the course of human history. But things started going downhill in 312 when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the historical facts are not consistent with the claim that Christianity since then has been a force for nonviolence:

The Crusaders perpetrated a century of genocides that murdered a million people, equivalent as a proportion of the world’s population at the time to the Nazi holocaust.
Shortly afterwards, the Cathars of southern France were exterminated in another Crusader genocide because they had embraced the Albigensian heresy.
The Inquisition, according to Rummel, killed 350,000 people.
Martin Luther’s rant against the Jews is barely distinguishable from the writings of Hitler.
The three founders of Protestantism, Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII, had thousands of heretics burned at the stake, as they and their followers took Jesus literally when he said, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”
Following the biblical injunction, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” Christians killed 60,000-100,000 accused witches in the European witchhunts.
The European Wars of Religion had death rates that were double that of World War I and that were in the range of World War II in Europe.
Christian conquistadors massacred and enslaved native Americans in vast numbers, and perhaps twenty million were killed in all (not counting unintentional epidemics) by the European settlement of the Americas.
World War I, as I recall, was a war fought mostly by Christians against Christians. As for World War II and its associated horrors, see my answer to the previous question.


Certain Christian denominations, such as the Quakers, did indeed mobilize the abolitionist movement, but they came late to the party. Christianity had no problem with slavery for more than 1500 years, and agitation against the institution only took off with the writings of John Locke and other philosophers of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment, who found plenty of good secular reasons why slavery was abominable. The American abolitionists fought against a slaveholding South that was, of course, thoroughly Christian, including many ministers who defended slavery because it was approved in the Bible.


As for Martin Luther King, in his essay “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” he discusses his inspirations: ancient Greek and Enlightenment philosophers, renegade humanistic theologians who rejected orthodox Christian doctrine, and most of all, Gandhi. And of course the segregationists he opposed were all Christians, and several of the civil rights activists they murdered were Jewish.


This is not to single out Christians or Christianity as a source of violence; many of the contemporary alternatives were just as bad. And there have been times in recent history when Christian ideas and movements have been pacifying forces, particularly when they have been influenced the humanitarian currents I discuss in the book. But to say that Christianity has, overall, been a force for peace in history is factually inaccurate.



I’ve read that at the beginning of the 20th century, ninety percent of deaths in warfare were suffered by soldiers, but at the end, ninety percent were suffered by civilians.

This is a bogus statistic; see pp. 317–320.

You say that cruel punishments and slavery have been abolished. But torture was practiced by the United States during the Bush administration, and human trafficking still takes place in many countries.

There is an enormous difference between a clandestine, illegal, and universally decried practice in a few parts of the world and an open, institutionalized, and universally approved practice everywhere in the world. Human trafficking, as terrible as it is, cannot be compared to the African slave trade (see pp. 157–188), nor can the recent harsh interrogation of terrorist suspects to extract information, as indefensible as it was, be compared to millennia of sadistic torture all over the world for punishment and entertainment (see pp. 130-132 and 144–149). In understanding the history of violence, one has to make distinctions among levels of horror.

Haven’t we just been lucky? If Churchill hadn’t stood up to Hitler, if Stalin hadn’t been willing to sacrifice tens of millions of Russians, if German scientists had succeeded in their nuclear program, then most of the world would be living under the horrors of the Third Reich.

True, but these counterfactuals go both ways. As John Mueller has put it, “had Adolf Hitler gone into art rather than politics, had he been gassed a bit more thoroughly by the British in the trenches in 1918, had he, rather than the man marching next to him, been gunned down in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, had he failed to survive the automobile crash he experienced in 1930, had he been denied the leadership position in Germany, or had he been removed from office at almost any time before September 1939 (and possibly even before May 1940), Europe’s greatest war would most probably never have taken place.”

One could argue that in fact the world has just emerged from a run of stupendous bad luck, one in which three extraordinarily bloodthirsty men—Hitler, Stalin, and Mao—managed to take over powerful states, and were responsible for a majority of the deaths from war and genocide in the 20th century. Many historians have argued as follows: No Hitler, no Holocaust; no Stalin, no Purge; no Mao, no Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. See the section “The Trajectory of Genocide,” particularly pp. 331–336–338, 343.

I repeat: Haven’t we just been lucky? On a number of occasions, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world came just this close to nuclear annihilation.

According to the most recent analyses of documents from the Cuban Missile Crisis (see, e.g., Max Frankel’s High Noon in the Cold War), both the US and USSR desperately tried to get out of the crisis, avoiding unnecessary provocations and offering greater concessions than they had to. Other allegedly just-this-close brushes with Armageddon, such as the Vietnam and Yom Kippur wars, were even less perilous. As Mueller puts it, the metaphor of an escalator, in which one misstep could have carried leaders up and away to all-out nuclear war, is misleading. A better metaphor is a ladder: each rung made leaders increasingly acrophobic, and in every case they nervously sought a way to step back down.


As long as nuclear weapons exist, one cannot say that we are living in less-violent times, especially since it is inevitable that they will be used at some time in the future.

There is no answer to the question of how to compare the decline in actual deaths from dozens of high-probability categories (homicide, war, domestic abuse, and so on) with the increase in hypothetical deaths from one low-probability category – it is, as they say, a philosophical question. But it’s far from certain that nuclear weapons will ever be used again. The 67-year history of nonuse suggests that, contrary to predictions that blundering politicians and trigger-happy generals have always been on the verge of unleashing nuclear weapons, the likelihood of their being used is probably very small. Of course, even an event with an extremely low odds, when the probability is exponentiated over enough years, becomes extremely probable, but that curve has to be set off against the one representing the probability that the Global Zero project will succeed and that nuclear weapons will go the way of chemical weapons, human sacrifice, and slave auctions – also a low-probability event, but one which has a nonzero chance of happening in this century.


How can you say that violence has declined when we continue to murder millions of unborn babies?

As I discuss on pp. 426–428, the rate of abortion worldwide has been in decline. I also discuss the question whether people perceive abortion as a form of violence, given the evolving understanding of the locus of moral value over the centuries.

What about all the chickens in factory farms?

I discuss the chickens in a section on Animal Rights in chapter 7, pp. 469–473.

What about the American imprisonment craze?

As unjust as many current American imprisonment practices are, they cannot be compared to the lethal sadism of criminal punishment in earlier centuries (pp. 144-146). For a discussion of the causes and effects of today’s imprisonment binge, see pp. 121–123.


If you measure violence in terms of homicides or war deaths, couldn’t the decline of violence just be a by-product of advances in lifesaving medical care?

Unlikely, for a number of reasons. First, before the late 19th and early 20th century, most medicine was quackery, and doctors killed as many patients as they saved, yet many of the declines I document occurred before that time. Second, many forms of violent crime move up and down in tandem—for example, rapes and robberies went up in the 1960s and down in the 1990s, just like homicides—so it’s unlikely that any of these trends simply consist in a constant amount of violence which has been reallocated from deaths to injuries thanks to quick-acting EMTs. Third, while medical technologies have improved, so have weapon technologies. Fourth, advances in medicine can only move the numbers around for the statistical sliver consisting of the victims of violence who are injured so severely that they would have died with even with the primitive medical care in the past, but not so severely that would have died even with the advanced medical care of the present. Yet many of the declines are from scorched-earth campaigns of violence in which no amount of medical care could have reduced the death tolls to current levels—Mongol invasions, deliberate sieges of cities (in which doctors, even if they were around, would not have been allowed in), over-the-top frontal assaults into machine-gun fire, Dresden, Hiroshima, carpet-bombings, the deliberate killing or starvation of prisoners of war.

But most important, the development and deployment of medical care to save the lives of soldiers is itself a part of the very phenomenon I'm exploring—that war leaders and battlefield commanders today treat the lives of their soldiers as far more precious than in the days when they were used as fodder. Not only have armed forces invested in lifesaving technologies at tremendous cost, but battlefield commanders have avoided the temptation to compensate for the advanced lifesaving care by putting more soldiers in riskier situations, keeping casualty rates constant.

With lifesaving technologies, as with lifetaking technologies (that is, weaponry), far more of the variance in deaths over time depends on how the technologies are applied—whether people want other people dead or alive—than on what they technologies can do. (See “Weaponry and disarmament" pp. 673–674.)

You can’t really be arguing that violence has declined. That would mean that you believe in progress—that Mahler was an advance over Beethoven, who was an advance over Bach, and old-fashioned notions like that.

Huh?

striktlymi: Hallo Kambo,

There is indeed a 'brand' of Atheism that is backed up by faith...some of those who chastise you here practice it too...

Still whining senselessly? Can you tell us who these are please?

Uyi Iredia: Circular reasoning, because it is well-known that it is moral (or good) to be logical.

No, it's not. Did you read the post I was replying to?

Deep Sight: This does not address the question, it evades the questions.

That we are highly developed animals and have found more efficient ways of surviving does not address the morality or otherwise of our primitive ways (which, by the way, are evidently still in existence given the state of the world).

The question is if any of the acts cited can be objectively described as immoral from the Atheistic world-view.

If I am simply a more intelligent animal than other animals, why is it wrong for me to use that intelligence to kill, oppress, seize and generally garner advantages for myself within the competitive and predatory environment in which we live.

Why would it be wrong for me to use my high intelligence to steal food and resources from others? Is this not survival? An animal surviving through its skills and abilities, no? Is this not what occurs in nature and indeed in human society continuously?

If Lions evolved further to a stage where they could farm meat from the soil, would it then become immoral for Lions to kill and eat other creatures for meat? You need to think carefully on this; for you suggest that the bigger brain and better methods suddenly mean that there is a moral wrong in applying more primitive methods of survival.

I am a Lion. Lions kill and take over other Lion Families. Now, as human, I am a more intelligent form. What's wrong with using that greater intelligence to selfishly advance my personal desires? What makes that morally wrong?

If anything, since I am a highly intelligent animal, you, my fellow man, had better wise up and become smarter than me, otherwise, it is legitimate for me to use my smarts to conquer you, seize your goods, family, wife and all - since this is what obtains in the natural world, no? What makes such an approach morally wrong for a highly developed animal?

In nature, might is indeed right! From the atheistic PoV, how is man excluded from nature?

If you will ponder carefully, you will see that in fact, this is what has been going on throughout human history - Might, and not right!

Are you telling me you cannot pick up from this that he's saying a ruthless application of logic does not mean more moral (in the traditional sense)? He's very clearly saying so. So do must of your xtian brothers actually. You hear it time and again; being logical leads to a ruthless application of survival of the fittest, it's the logical conclusion.

Visit the abortion thread and watch your friend anony (and others) appeal to emotion, visit this thread and watch your bretheren admit they do not use their brains with these issues, and your xtianity does define your moral code, does it not? Or are you telling me your faith-based religious system, which dictates your moral code, is built around logic? God ordering abraham to sacrifice his son was being logical? The genocides perhaps?

Empathy is the trait most people associate with morality, not logic. Logic they imagine leads to a dog eat dog world. At best it's seen as a necessary evil, not the driving force of morality.

Uyi Iredia: BTW the Incas and Aztecs were cannibalistic yet built great empires.

You're not even disputing that more logical means more moral, in fact you assert that (while paradoxically adhering to a faith-based religious system, this is probably why you had problems with your 'faith'), so why bring this up? It's meaningless actually.

If more logical means more moral (by our standards), and more logical implies less crimes like cannibalism, why bring this up? They might have built great empires, true, but have you looked at their neighbors/competition, the conditions at the time, etc? Have you looked at where this cultures evolved from, which cultures they advanced, their legacies, etc?

You do understand just how isolated and barbaric South-America was circa these civilizations' golden years? Despite the blood lust of these civilizations, they were probably less blood thirsty than most of their peers.

And just how advanced did these empires become? Consider your ancestors in Guinea were eating each other less than 200 years ago, they were also in no way anywhere near European Empires at the time, no? That is the usual level of development of cannibalistic societies. Even if the Aztec and Incan Empires no longer existed by the time Europeans arrived at SA, their descendents were still around. They didn't put up much of a fight, did they? Do you think they would have put up more resistance even in the glory years of those Empires?

Through history you'd find that more advanced = less violent, fact (I'm reading a fat book atm with hard numbers to back this assertion up, see here for him talking about his sources). More advanced civilizations generally, not necessarily, tend to be more logical. They also generally tend to be regarded as more 'moral' or good, at least by today's definitions of good. Again, even you assert that. While great, their greatness has to be examined in context. Relatively, they weren't that great.

Uyi Iredia: Furthermore, I always note that people use circular reasoning to justify morality or the origin of morality it is said that morality is useful, advantageous, necessary which clearly means the same thing and are all presumably moral. Some even say reason or logic, but these also are presumably moral.

I have no idea about what you're on about, but see above.

striktlymi: Why not attempt to exhibit your butthurt with things you know something about?

I made an ignorant claim, where? Perhaps you think this masks the fact that you usually have absolutely nothing of value to add? I hope you're trolling as this is particularly both foolish and childish. The sad part is I can't tell if you're serious or not, as this seems to be your default mode.

You use foolish 'logic', get called out, then whine about how people don't understand you. How? They simply don't. Oh the drama!! Whining senselessly on a board on the interwebz meant for debate, your personal diary. I certainly can't understand why you don't think yourself foolish, is that what you're whining about?

If you've nothing of value to add, consider shutting up. Just consider it.

striktlymi: They did that and some still do...

You still do not know what you are talking about...

You showed his ignorance, how?

Instead of implying some magical, esoteric knowledge or reasoning that shows his ignorance, why don't you actually show it. You do know that is the whole purpose of having these debates, yes?

If you can't, could you consider shutting up?


And btw, where did he ever say that they never did that, or that they aren't still doing it in some quarters?

Atheist:-D:
She cant drive but she can pilot a plane?

So what about this scenario? A woman is in the car with her husband (who is driving) and suddenly he has a stroke or heart attack, she has to take over the wheel and drive him to the hospital right? Surely she cant be arrested for that?

I was just reading a story about Ribery and some monumental hypocrisy concerning alcohol (though this story is probably bogus). Anyways, it reminds of other simple things, like I know many muslims who would never touch alcohol. No, never, that's haram. Then they do some holier-than-thou once in a while. This same people have no problems abusing (with particular relish) 'roche', 'd5', 'wiwi' (now 'chunk'), crack cocaine (not sure what it's called locally in that case), etc etc.

JWs do not endorse receiving blood, even while someone dies a perfectly avoidable, slow, torturous death. Then of course there are xtian scientists as well. I wouldn't put it beyond muslims to top that.

Logicboy03: See cult memeber

I still await his commune. He's now moved on to scientology, probably to learn tricks of the trade.

musKeeto: Lol..

It's a good thing I follow you, else I'd miss jewels such as this.

striktlymi: You just demonstrated that you don't know what is under contention here...

Please, do tell.

striktlymi: Population separation is not the same as considering the 'whole'...

What exactly does this mean? Again, do you even understand what I was asking you to consider?

An edit to the above

Btw, the words you're looking for is "whole species", not whole populations

Even if you were talking about all members of a species (not their various populations), I very clearly was not. Do you understand now?

If all members of a species aren't separated by whatever means, are breeding etc, they evolve together. If separated thereby not interacting, I suppose you expect them to use 'spirit power' to somehow synch the genetic changes, yes?

striktlymi: Hope you know what it means to say the "whole population"?

And I was talking about whole populations, right?

me: Apply even simpler thought processes to populations separated over (a great deal of time)time.

I hope you know what it means when I say that you apply even simpler processes to separated populations, yes?

On another note, why are you derailing? But please do answer these questions.


edit: Btw, the words you're looking for is "whole species", not whole populations

thehomer: God invented the sense of family? Yet it didn't occur to him to create a family rather than having Adam alone roam the garden? He didn't realize that Adam didn't have a companion from those animals? You must be joking.

To put it lightly. It's similar to saying god created 'being', or a sense of being even. If there were no being before god, how did god come into being?

Somewhat similar to what this thread is about methinks.

striktlymi: Apply the thought process used in the above to humans and Apes...

Apply even simpler thought processes to populations separated over (a great deal of time)time.

Deep Sight: This does not address the question, it evades the questions.

That we are highly developed animals and have found more efficient ways of surviving does not address the morality or otherwise of our primitive ways (which, by the way, are evidently still in existence given the state of the world).

The question is if any of the acts cited can be objectively described as immoral from the Atheistic world-view.

If I am simply a more intelligent animal than other animals, why is it wrong for me to use that intelligence to kill, oppress, seize and generally garner advantages for myself within the competitive and predatory environment in which we live.

Why would it be wrong for me to use my high intelligence to steal food and resources from others? Is this not survival? An animal surviving through its skills and abilities, no? Is this not what occurs in nature and indeed in human society continuously?

If Lions evolved further to a stage where they could farm meat from the soil, would it then become immoral for Lions to kill and eat other creatures for meat? You need to think carefully on this; for you suggest that the bigger brain and better methods suddenly mean that there is a moral wrong in applying more primitive methods of survival.

I am a Lion. Lions kill and take over other Lion Families. Now, as human, I am a more intelligent form. What's wrong with using that greater intelligence to selfishly advance my personal desires? What makes that morally wrong?

If anything, since I am a highly intelligent animal, you, my fellow man, had better wise up and become smarter than me, otherwise, it is legitimate for me to use my smarts to conquer you, seize your goods, family, wife and all - since this is what obtains in the natural world, no? What makes such an approach morally wrong for a highly developed animal?

In nature, might is indeed right! From the atheistic PoV, how is man excluded from nature?

If you will ponder carefully, you will see that in fact, this is what has been going on throughout human history - Might, and not right!

What is morally wrong with that, when this is the obvious way of nature?

Even if might were right, it's still logical to be moral

Within human society specifically, every other being in competition with you is a being like you, so they can strike back if you strike them. If you go about blindly exposing might, there's a good chance someone will strike you back. You have to be careful, and hence the need for moral codes, to protect our individual and collective interests. For instance, if eating people becomes acceptable, you might become the next item on the menu.

We won the genetic lottery, we've surpassed the rest of nature. We are the only ones capable of reason on this level, to arrive at simple truths like the above. We are the only ones capable of eschewing nature's usual modus operandi. We are capable of laying down a purposeful, intelligent and more efficient way to achieve our goals, as opposed to nature's usually capricious whims, so why not use this ability? It's in our best interest, both individually and collectively.

Deep Sight: This does not address the question, it evades the questions.

That we are highly developed animals and have found more efficient ways of surviving does not address the morality or otherwise of our primitive ways (which, by the way, are evidently still in existence given the state of the world).

The question is if any of the acts cited can be objectively described as immoral from the Atheistic world-view.

If I am simply a more intelligent animal than other animals, why is it wrong for me to use that intelligence to kill, oppress, seize and generally garner advantages for myself within the competitive and predatory environment in which we live.

Why would it be wrong for me to use my high intelligence to steal food and resources from others? Is this not survival? An animal surviving through its skills and abilities, no? Is this not what occurs in nature and indeed in human society continuously?

If Lions evolved further to a stage where they could farm meat from the soil, would it then become immoral for Lions to kill and eat other creatures for meat? You need to think carefully on this; for you suggest that the bigger brain and better methods suddenly mean that there is a moral wrong in applying more primitive methods of survival.

I am a Lion. Lions kill and take over other Lion Families. Now, as human, I am a more intelligent form. What's wrong with using that greater intelligence to selfishly advance my personal desires? What makes that morally wrong?

If anything, since I am a highly intelligent animal, you, my fellow man, had better wise up and become smarter than me, otherwise, it is legitimate for me to use my smarts to conquer you, seize your goods, family, wife and all - since this is what obtains in the natural world, no? What makes such an approach morally wrong for a highly developed animal?

In nature, might is indeed right! From the atheistic PoV, how is man excluded from nature?

If you will ponder carefully, you will see that in fact, this is what has been going on throughout human history - Might, and not right!

What is morally wrong with that, when this is the obvious way of nature?

Even if might were right, it's still logical to be moral

Within human society specifically, every other being in competition with you is a being like you, so they can strike back if you strike them. If you go about blindly using might, there's a good chance someone will strike you back. You have to be careful, and hence the need for moral codes, to protect our individual and collective interests. For instance, if eating people becomes acceptable, you might become the next item on the menu.

We won the genetic lottery, we've surpassed the rest of nature. We are the only ones capable of reason on this level, to arrive at simple truths like the above. We are the only ones capable of eschewing nature's usual modus operandi. We are capable of laying down a purposeful, intelligent and more efficient way to achieve our goals, as opposed to nature's usually capricious whims, so why not use this ability? It's in our best interest, both individually and collectively.

Deep Sight: What you are missing is the entire meaning of the word "necessary" as per philosophy.

I'm certainly no philosophy buff per say. I'll look it up, thanks

Kay 17: 1. God is a necessary being

2. If God exists, he necessarily exists

3. God is a Supernatural Cause.

4. Causes can be Natural.

5. A cause is either supernatural or natural.

6. A cause is not necessarily Supernatural.

7. Therefore God is not necessary and hence can not exist.

If he isn't necessary that would mean he (very) likely doesn't exist, not that he necessarily doesn't exist, no? That he's surplus to requirements (by quite some way imo, so much so it's illogical to assume he exists), but not definitely so. Unless I'm missing something, of course.

Deep Sight: @ Wiegraf, i see you, and will revert. The other thread we had a long discussion on a while back, which you created; I did not forget it; i simply had too much to say and was too lazy to type. I will revert to it sometime soon. I have been known to make my responses sometimes after months or even years.

Take your time good ser. Time is rather expensive (despite the way I waste a good deal of it)

Mr anony: Lol, of course who am I to infringe upon the rights of murderers to kill human beings.

Lol, is that what you tell yourself to ease your conscience?


Yeah, and I'll find pictures of red blood cells as well.

I believe this post illustrates your nonsense quite brilliantly. This is even lower than the usual anony-sms. You've done well, thank you.

Try to add pictures of human kidneys, sweat, $hit, and even more fetuses. All these are human, true, but they're clearly not human beings.

Mr anony: You were only called a murderer in as much as you were advocating the death of the babies.

You were only a heartless dolt in as much as you were advocating blatantly infringing on the rights of people, ruining the lives of many along the way.

Btw, again, they are not babies. Perhaps I should find pictures of sperm and make the same silly appeal you just made?

Mr anony: You started the emotional argument when you called me heartless.

Well, I remember you calling me a murderer, and I'm not the only one.

And no, those are not babies.

First, why can't dismiss?

All this is my view only.

First. No. As we're capable of advanced reasoning I hold us to higher standards. But I'm hypocritical.

Second. Ideally, no. But I wouldn't apply the same standards to both sentient and non-sentients. I think it would be silly, so yes. It's acceptable and unavoidable. Some what related (but not really) sef, think of all the micro-life you kill inadvertently or necessarily.

Third. Obviously no, as a sentient on another sentient, that's a clear no.


Ultimately I believe in a deterministic and probalistic universe. My stance may be even more 'ruthless' than where I think you're going, as I don't hold people responsible for their actions per se. But I think being morally good (in the somewhat traditional sense) is the practical, reasonable way to go, however you look at it.


Edits: minor

There are threads. And there are threads..

Too hot to handle? At least those who don't hide the crazy take it head on

Stop killing babies...

deols: But I have to say that Muslim nations allowing haram can never be justified.

Simple

I wish I had your way with words.

Mr anony: By your definition, 1 week old babies do not count as human since they are incapable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, problem solving and culture through social learning. combined with an adaptation to bipedal locomotion that frees the hands for manipulating objects.


In fact monkeys are this stage are considerably more human according to you.

They have the tools at that point, fully formed organs of their own at that stage. Again, nascent but fully formed, capable of existing on their own. Not so with a fetus. If you cannot tell the difference, well, then you're either disingenuous or stoopid. No other excuse I can think of. Do you call a tire a car? Perhaps the bolts?



And I do support giving rights similar to ours to the great apes and a few other species. I suppose you don't care because they don't have the magical pixie dust, 'souls', or whatever you call it. The fact that they may have to ability to be sentient (or just about be on the verge of) doesn't seem to concern you, assuming you're tossing aside the idea of giving them rights with these comments ie. As I can't see what else you're using to qualify the right to live other than perhaps, human dna?

If so, is a kidney human? It has human dna. What about stem cells? Even saliva has human dna, no? I understand we now put some of our dna into cows as well, to produce better milk. Are they now human? Do they get to go to heaven as well?

Sperm should be human as well, but I doubt you'd agree. Think of the trillions you've killed so far. That's hell for you

Mr anony: Are you arguing that a human being is only human as long as it has the right body parts? Are amputees therefore less human than those with complete limbs?

Yes. What I've stated is as simplistic and black and white as this nonsense. Perhaps you don't have a human brain?

Mr anony: No it is not, I'm only bringing you face to face with your thesis.

Excellent work!

Mr anony: Yawn, you still haven't explained why it is an organ and not a human being? What does this 'organ' do for the body exactly?

It becomes a baby. Like sperm. Genius

And I believe I said 'like' an organ, on mobile so checking is tedious.

Mr anony: religious? no I am only wondering what else to call a person who thinks it is morally acceptable for women to have the right to kill their own children.

And I am wondering how you think it's morally acceptable to tell women what they do with their own bodies over potential, again potential, children. Forcing them to go through with a process they clearly are not interested in. If you're going to make go through with it then you take responsibility, simple.

If your concern is for souls then you have some nerve, .