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Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@randomhero1982
So we underwent a mutation in order for us to evolve our morals? And natural selection favored those who did not cause pain to others?
You still fail to illustrate why is causing pain wrong to others? Pain makes people stronger an therefor better equips them for survival
@Jordan: "You still fail to illustrate why is causing pain wrong to others?"
I don't like pain. Others say they don't like pain. Together we agree to try and not cause each other pain. I agree to respect your stuff and you agree to respect mine. No FAILURE HERE. It's called "getting along." Were we incapable of doing this we would have gone extinct. Humans are social animals. Living in communities means having rules and boundaries. Violate the rules and be removed from the group. It is he same today as it was in the beginning. Caring for one another makes people stronger and working together equips them for survival. Once a pain is understood, we seek to avoid or lessen it whenever we can. Your assertion is absurd.
Jordan: : "I guess psychopaths and rapist aren’t bad, they are just apart of nature. They are just manifestations of nature unfolding and aren’t really accountable for their actions. You can prevent the psychopath to ensure your own survival, but he is in no way wrong just as an earthquake or tsunami isn’t wrong or evil."
Jesus H. Tap Dancing Christ! What the fuck are you talking about. A man rapes your Mother or Daughter! You don't know he is evil without your fairy god! You need an expert to explain this to you?
@chimp3
Why is he evil? Do you have scientific evidence he is evil? He is just trying to procreate and carry out our species one true mission: survival.
What if he believes he is not wrong? Just because the majority of people find it wrong does not mean it is. Nature is impartial
Jordan: Why is he evil? Do you have scientific evidence he is evil? He is just trying to procreate and carry out our species one true mission: survival.
What if he believes he is not wrong? Just because the majority of people find it wrong does not mean it is. Nature is impartial
I have never deferred to nature to determine right from wrong. I am an advanced ape with philosophical abilities. Are you less than that?
OH look... its going to be a debate that comes down to definitions.
"what is good," "what is evil" then we get into the morality debate... and yeah most of us have seen this time and time again.
Birth defects are something that happens in our world, wars happen, deaths of young people happen. There are a lot of things I dont understand. I just try to go with what I perceive as rational. If Jordan is trying to make a point that the majority of the people on this forum are somehow misguided because of what we have chosen NOT to believe, I cannot see the relationship of a psychopath or rapist is in anyway connected with an atheist. His wording may make it seem as if since they are present, then they are natural. But if their actions are deemed wrong, then the beings are simply part of the human race that act in an immoral or wrong way. Thats no more natural than a birth defect. Its just the way things are. At least we can see the psychopath and the rapist, we cant see the great magician in the sky, never have and never will
@thinker
Nature is impartial. Just because majority people think something is wrong doesn’t make it so. There is no scientific proof raping someone is wrong. In fact one could argue it benefits the survival of the species.
I don’t recall Ted Bundy ever having children. He murdered and raped a lot of corpses, but never consummated the relationship, ie. he never bore children.
Unlike many other disorders, psychopathy is not genetically inherited. It is the product of environmental factors.
@rat spit
“The product of environmental factors”
Interesting. Isn’t natural selection also a product of environmental factors? what makes these environmental factors not natural? He is still a natural individual responding to a natural environment through a natural chemical process in his brain that has been evolved over billions of years through natural selection.
No, natural selection is the pressure environmental factors exert on all living things. The more fit something is for it's environment the better chance it has of reproducing, this is what survival of the fittest means.
He did have a child.
Also, how do you MURDER and rape corpses? By definition, they are dead.
Morality is a matter of personal taste.
@sapporo
So saying stabbing babies is bad is a personal opinion similar to the statement country music is unpleasant?
So i shouldn’t say it’s wrong or evil i should just simply say I don’t like it when babies are stabbed?
Morality is a matter of personal taste.
You're still ignoring suffering, if you don't care whether anyone suffers then fine, you don't need to worry about the suffering caused by country and western music, but this would make an amoral hypocrite unless you don't mind suffering yourself. Is that what you're claiming to be, an amoral hypocrite?
I'll agree to a slightly modified version: nature does not have an objective right or wrong, good or evil.
@Jordan: When is any moral judgment not a personal opinion? On what are you basing morality? Most people have a moral system based on the culture they live in. Their values of right and wrong are culturally specific. When scientists study morality these days they tend to talk about "Well Being." In order to get to any level of objectivity, we need to know what in the hell we are talking about.
@ Cog
Some individuals have difficulty communicating marvellous insights and have great difficulty in defining the objects of discussion.Their education seems to have been deficient in teaching actual definitions of common words and their usage never mind how those definitions can be changed when discussing strict definition as in say: Psychiatry or Geology.
In addition their adult progress (Not at all their fault) has been delayed as they seem to have a comprehension problem , and a problem with terminological inexactitudes when it comes to repeating other writers' words. This can (not their darling fault) naturally lead to confusion and sometimes even anger.
So to be fair , please be gentle with so afflicted, their desire to get you to "drink bleach" for instance, I am sure was a complete misunderstanding and just a symptom of the problems I have outlined above. I am confident many others have wished you worse, they probably just didn't know that bleach was a poison. He no doubt meant "beach" or wine....the Humpty Dumpty solution is always best.
OLD MAN SHOWERS: RE: " I am confident many others have wished you worse,"
FUCK TIN-MAN.
@Cog Re: "FUCK TIN-MAN."
Only if you buy me dinner first.
@ DAMN - now what in the hell am I going to do with this can of 10/40?
@Cog
Oh, and I forgot to mention, McDonalds doesn't count. It has to be a nice, expensive, fancy restaurant. I may be easy, but I'm not cheap.
@Tin-Man
@Cog
You two are adorable.
@cognostic
Well I would say there is no such thing as morals but I would look to science and nature for examples of favorable behavior among a group of individuals. And since life evolved through natural processes which favor the fittest among a group of individuals for the sole purpose of survival, I would say raping is beneficial for a species when women are not putting out. Also the murder of bums and any other individuals who do not contribute to society should be encouraged. Since rape and murder of young is seen in the wild, I would say that these behaviors are natural and acceptable.
We have no evidence that any of these behaviors are wrong so condemning murderers and rapist is an outdated practice backed by no science.
@Jordan:
RE: "science and nature for examples of favorable behavior ." Favorable to who and for what reason? Look all you want. You are still responsible for your own judgment and if you violate the norms of your surrounding you had better be really good at convincing others you are correct (which you are not) or ready to pay the consequences.
RE: "fittest: You do not understand the word in biological terms. It does not mean "strongest" or "most powerful." It has nothing to do with rape. It means, "most able to adapt." If you are in a tribe or clan you must follow the morals of the tribe or clan. Some tribes, even today, have no concept of marriage. Sexual behavior is done for all sorts of reasons. Rape may or may not be a normal part of tribal life as it is defined by the morals of the tribe and not by you or me. I know of one tribe where the men of the tribe rape the boys as a rite of passage into adulthood. All young boys in the tribe are raped by the older men. It's their culture, not ours. People who violate tribal norms by bullying or being strong will be banned from the tribe or killed. "FIT" as you are intending it is "incorrect." There are rules and even the strong must follow them. If rape as we know it is against the rules, any tribal member doing it will find himself facing consequences. If you got caught as an ancient Christian, you would have to marry your victim. THERE ARE RULES - MORAL VALUES.
RE: We have no evidence that any of these behaviors are wrong so condemning murderers and rapist is an outdated practice backed by no science.
To label any behavior right or wrong you must indicate which yardstick you are using. It is not illegal to be a bum in most American cities. Now we must define bum. (Homeless). There are generally places to pitch tents and live on the streets. Even in my own city, Anaheim California. (I never knew this was there until I found it on youtube one day.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Z3Rd0rD_I
There is nothing amoral about being homeless.
Condemning Rapists and murders is Wrong, based on LAWS that we have all agreed upon to follow. You will follow the LAWS of the tribe or you will be removed from it. You will be incarcerated or killed. This is really simple.
If you want to live in a culture where rape and murder are more common and rarely punished, I suggest Somalia. At the same time, the punishments are harsh. Amputation of hands and feet are common. And guess what, That is the moral punishment. Can you imagine trying to stop an amputation? The soldiers engaged in the act would shoot you in the head.
You either adhere to the social norms around you or you are killed or isolated. True in every culture on the planet.
@cognostic
by fit I mean the most fit to survive and if that means murdering off those that bring a species survival rate down, than science and nature would support it.
But So just so we are clear, you do not believe any particular behaviors are wrong, you just go along with the majority? Or are you trying to say you believe something?
If you lived in a society that participated in ritualistic murder of babies, would that be okay since it would be permitted by law?
@Jordon: Murdering has nothing to do with "most fit." All cultures have moral values. Now you are confusing legitimate ways of taking lives with murder. Why is it not possible for you to stay on one topic? You really have no understanding what so ever of the words you use. Not even reasonable definitions.
Everyone believes particular behaviors are wrong. Including me. I think you are a _____ ___ for coming in here and spouting your bullshit with your dishonest trolling but I can't tell you that because it is against the site rules. If I was a moderator I would have kicked your ass off the site long ago. Alas, like you, I am just a lowly member. My view of right or wrong is not the view that matters. I must do my best to follow the guidelines and attempt to have a reasonable discussion with you, even when you are being completely unreasonable.
Living in a society where babies were ritualistically killed (YOU CAN NOT CALL IT MURDER. THAT IS AN ETHNOCENTRIC VIEW.) and condoned by the society would "MANDATE" that you follow the same guidelines whether you thought it was moral or not. If you tried to stop it, you would be killed or jailed.
The reason I don't happen to agree with the ritualistic killing of babies is because I thing it violates the child's well being. I also think it is harmful to the culture. Until very recently - we are talking 20 years - Koreans engaged in the ritualistic killing of female babies by aborting them. (I call it ritualistic killing for no other reason than the babies were aborted for being female.) I have never talked about this in any of my Korean classes. IT'S TABOO. The women were then accused of doing bad things during their pregnancy that cause the female baby. When I came to Korea, 1997, they were in the midst of an educational program to teach the Korean people that the male determined the sexuality of the baby and not the female. Abortion is now illegal and people seem to be okay with female babies; however, getting a sonogram to sex the baby is still illegal. Many families keep trying until they have a male.
Jordan - from your posts, my guess is you have absolutely no understanding of any culture but your own. You need to take a trip to some third world country and go backpacking.
I would love to send you the video of witch burning in Nigeria or the Amputation as punishment in Somalia and then you tell me what you would do to stop it, Your moral values do not matter. Can you even imagine what would happen to you it you attempted to stop an Islamic stoning? I know for a fact, given your posts, you can not have any idea at all what it would be like or how you would thing differently being raised in one of these cultures.
BY WHAT YARDSTICK ARE YOU MEASURING MORAL BEHAVIOR? Nothing is moral or immoral until you identify the measuring device you are using.;
Murder is unlawful by definition.
@ Sapporo
Jordan has difficulty with the English language. Comprehension and communication. He also seems not know how to use a dictionary.
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