Believers: What Would You Do?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
201

[quote]forlife wrote:
How then can you state with integrity that you KNOW rape is evil? Your belief that rape is evil must similarly be based on faith, not knowledge.[/quote]

Religious faith. That zealous, fire in the gut and heart faith. One which makes me not able to do anything less but accept both the evil of rape and the existence of my God, as reality.

I don’t feel like my intellectual integrity is challenged when I say that rape IS evil without stuttering or wringing my hands, after all. Anyone, want to call me dishonest over that? Anyone want to argue for an agnostic moral view of rape? Anyone?

203

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
How then can you state with integrity that you KNOW rape is evil? Your belief that rape is evil must similarly be based on faith, not knowledge.[/quote]

Religious faith. That zealous, fire in the gut and heart faith, that makes me not able to do anything less but accpet both the evil of rape, and the existence of my God, as reality.

I don’t feel like my intellectual integrity is challenged when I say that rape IS evil, after all. Anyone, want to call me dishonest over that? Anyone want to argue for an agnostic moral view of rape? Anyone?[/quote]

In the galaxy of moral relativism there are worlds that would absolutely blow your mind.[/quote]

No, I suppose you’re right.

204

[quote]forlife wrote:

The hypothetical doesn’t ask whether your choices and behavior would be right or wrong. It asks what those choices and behavior would be, irrespective of whether you ascribe them to an ultimate moral source. A mother would still protect her child, whether or not there was a god or an afterlife.[/quote]

Not necessarily, and you have absolutely no reason to think that a mother would do that.

But, as I mentioned above, why would it matter if she did or didn’t? You want to show that certain “good” behaviors would be done in the absence of a God/higher moral authority. But, those behaviors wouldn’t be “good” or “bad” - only different. So why would you care if a mother protected her child or not?

205

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
How then can you state with integrity that you KNOW rape is evil? Your belief that rape is evil must similarly be based on faith, not knowledge.[/quote]

Religious faith. That zealous, fire in the gut and heart faith, that makes me not able to do anything less but accpet both the evil of rape, and the existence of my God, as reality.

I don’t feel like my intellectual integrity is challenged when I say that rape IS evil, after all. Anyone, want to call me dishonest over that? Anyone want to argue for an agnostic moral view of rape? Anyone?[/quote]

[/quote]In the galaxy of moral relativism there are worlds that would absolutely blow your mind.[/quote]

Rape is an unfortunate example because many species could not exist without it. In the animal kingdom it serves a very real purpose (in SOME species). Only the most energetic and verile males will even succeed in copulation, which pretty much means the weak and disinterested won’t pollute the species’ gene pool.

In that context rape is almost a moral imperative for them. In other species copulation is surrendered without contest only to the established Alpha Male that ‘establishes’ dominance over other males within the group, sometimes violently.

If we evolved, climbing the social order to what we have today, Rape is at best an antiquated, brutal, and unnecessary method of procreation, and a thinly veiled attempt at animal dominance. It has no appropriate context, given the fine tuned nature of our current social order, any more than David Koresh insisting that his followers surrender their wives sexually to his superior seed (Alpha Male style).

It would be like repairing your Ferrari with a splitting maul. Morality, from my admittedly limited viewpoint, is highly contextual.

208

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

We both have faith that rape is evil.[/quote]

Ding, ding, ding! And you act on it so fervently, so zealously, as if it were reality. As if should, no must, be accepted as reality.

I bet you don’t hem and haw about it. I bet you don’t qualifty any statements about the evil of rape. I bet you say “what was done to you was an evil thing, committed by an evil person.” And you believe it with a passion. For all intents and purposes, it’s a fact to you.

Not, “well, I can’t really know that an evil act was committed against you, since neither of us can know that rape is evil, since we can’t know the real absolute existence of evil–but in my opinion it was. Let’s ask the rapist if he’ll agree. If we all do, than we can be morally outraged over this!”

Welcome to nothing short of religious faith. Your hypothetical humanity wouldn’t even have that capacity.

[/quote]

Having faith in a principle or value is different from having faith in an empirical fact about the objective universe.

But yes, when it comes to rape we both have faith that it is evil.

So you now acknowledge that you don’t actually KNOW rape is evil or that your god is real?

209

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

There’s pretty good reason to believe the mother would try to save her child, even in the absence of a god. The maternal instinct perpetuates the species. [/quote]

And there’s good reason to belive she wouldn’t expose it to the elements during lean times. Infanticide isnt’ exactly a foreign concept to humanity. Now, we may have made it a bit more unsightly with the pill and abortion, but you shouldn’t assume too much.

Serious question, how are YOU so confident you can answer for the behavior of a humanity that doesn’t exist? Heck, you’ve admitted that you can’t deny the formative impact that religion has had on beliefs and values you still how today as an agnostic. How do you even know what you as individual would do?[/quote]

He completely missed what I was getting at to begin with. He is unwilling to admit that if god created the genes and the genes cause a behavior, god created the behavior. And as a possibility you cannot remove god from the situation without removing genes. He is claiming genes would be the same without god, which is an unreasonable assumption.

210

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
How then can you state with integrity that you KNOW rape is evil? Your belief that rape is evil must similarly be based on faith, not knowledge.[/quote]

Religious faith. That zealous, fire in the gut and heart faith. One which makes me not able to do anything less but accept both the evil of rape and the existence of my God, as reality.

I don’t feel like my intellectual integrity is challenged when I say that rape IS evil without stuttering or wringing my hands, after all. Anyone, want to call me dishonest over that? Anyone want to argue for an agnostic moral view of rape? Anyone?[/quote]

Come on, Sloth. I asked how you KNOW rape is evil and god is real, and your reply is “religious faith”? Are you now claiming that faith is actual knowledge?

212

[quote]forlife wrote:

Having faith in a principle or value is different from having faith in an empirical fact about the objective universe.
[/quote]

You are right, faith in a principal is religion.

213

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:

…It would be like repairing your Ferrari with a splitting maul. Morality, from my admittedly limited viewpoint, is highly contextual. [/quote]

Contextual = relative[/quote]

Right. Rape is fine for certain Marsupials, rodents, insects, etc for the very reason that their intellectual capacities do not allow for the type of advanced social order that would preface sexual intercourse with an otherwise amiable courtship.

It’s TERRIBLE for humans primarily because it robs the victim and the perpetrator of the dignity due a high order primate.

If a child steps on a needle, you get them a tetanus shot, you don’t amputate the foot and cauterize the stump… unless of course you neglected the wound until infection sets in. All I’m saying is that some definitions of morality are static, and others quite dynamic.

214

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

The hypothetical doesn’t ask whether your choices and behavior would be right or wrong. It asks what those choices and behavior would be, irrespective of whether you ascribe them to an ultimate moral source. A mother would still protect her child, whether or not there was a god or an afterlife.[/quote]

Not necessarily, and you have absolutely no reason to think that a mother would do that.

But, as I mentioned above, why would it matter if she did or didn’t? You want to show that certain “good” behaviors would be done in the absence of a God/higher moral authority. But, those behaviors wouldn’t be “good” or “bad” - only different. So why would you care if a mother protected her child or not?
[/quote]

Sure I do. That the species even exists is evidence for instincts, like preserving one’s offspring, which would motivate people’s behavior. Without such instincts, the species would be more likely go extinct.

I never mentioned a “good” or “bad” label in the hypothetical, only the behavior itself. And my point is that the behavior would still exist, irrespective of the label you place on it.

215

[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:

…It would be like repairing your Ferrari with a splitting maul. Morality, from my admittedly limited viewpoint, is highly contextual. [/quote]

Contextual = relative[/quote]

Right. Rape is fine for certain Marsupials, rodents, insects, etc for the very reason that their intellectual capacities do not allow for the type of advanced social order that would preface sexual intercourse with an otherwise amiable courtship.

It’s TERRIBLE for humans primarily because it robs the victim and the perpetrator of the dignity due a high order primate.

If a child steps on a needle, you get them tetanus shot, you don’t amputate the foot and cauterize the stump… unless of course you neglected the wound until infection set in. All I’m saying is that some definitions of morality are static, and others quite dynamic.

[/quote]

So rape in humans is always wrong, absolutely?

216

[quote]forlife wrote:

Sure I do. That the species even exists is evidence for instincts, like preserving one’s offspring, which would motivate people’s behavior. Without such instincts, the species would be more likely to go extinct.

I never mentioned a “good” or “bad” label in the hypothetical, only the behavior itself. My point is that the behavior would still exist, irrespective of the label you place on it.[/quote]

You are still failing to admit that conditions in your hypothetical negate any application to reality. You are contending that without god, all physics would be the same and all initial conditions the same and all evolution the same. That does not prove that Without god there would be moral behavior, because without god isn’t the only condition of the hypothetical.

217

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

There’s pretty good reason to believe the mother would try to save her child, even in the absence of a god. The maternal instinct perpetuates the species. [/quote]

And there’s good reason to belive she wouldn’t expose it to the elements during lean times. Infanticide isnt’ exactly a foreign concept to humanity. Now, we may have made it a bit more unsightly with the pill and abortion, but you shouldn’t assume too much.

Serious question, how are YOU so confident you can answer for the behavior of a humanity that doesn’t exist? Heck, you’ve admitted that you can’t deny the formative impact that religion has had on beliefs and values you still how today as an agnostic. How do you even know what you as individual would do?[/quote]

He completely missed what I was getting at to begin with. He is unwilling to admit that if god created the genes and the genes cause a behavior, god created the behavior. And as a possibility you cannot remove god from the situation without removing genes. He is claiming genes would be the same without god, which is an unreasonable assumption.[/quote]

I didn’t miss your point in the slightest. I said that even in the absence of a god, there is still reason to believe genetics would favor a maternal instinct.

218

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

There’s pretty good reason to believe the mother would try to save her child, even in the absence of a god. The maternal instinct perpetuates the species. [/quote]

And there’s good reason to belive she wouldn’t expose it to the elements during lean times. Infanticide isnt’ exactly a foreign concept to humanity. Now, we may have made it a bit more unsightly with the pill and abortion, but you shouldn’t assume too much.

Serious question, how are YOU so confident you can answer for the behavior of a humanity that doesn’t exist? Heck, you’ve admitted that you can’t deny the formative impact that religion has had on beliefs and values you still how today as an agnostic. How do you even know what you as individual would do?[/quote]

He completely missed what I was getting at to begin with. He is unwilling to admit that if god created the genes and the genes cause a behavior, god created the behavior. And as a possibility you cannot remove god from the situation without removing genes. He is claiming genes would be the same without god, which is an unreasonable assumption.[/quote]

I didn’t miss your point in the slightest. I said that even in the absence of a god, there is still reason to believe genetics would favor a maternal instinct. [/quote]

No, because there is not reason to believe there would be genetics at all.

219

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Vires Eternus wrote:

If we evolved… [/quote]

If we evolved there is no right and wrong.

If we evolved all morality is “contextual.”

If we evolved all morality is “relative.”

If we evolved rape has never been nor now is right or wrong.[/quote]

Not really, evolution or not right is right and wrong is wrong…Makes no difference.

220

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

Sure I do. That the species even exists is evidence for instincts, like preserving one’s offspring, which would motivate people’s behavior. Without such instincts, the species would be more likely to go extinct.

I never mentioned a “good” or “bad” label in the hypothetical, only the behavior itself. My point is that the behavior would still exist, irrespective of the label you place on it.[/quote]

You are still failing to admit that conditions in your hypothetical negate any application to reality. You are contending that without god, all physics would be the same and all initial conditions the same and all evolution the same. That does not prove that Without god there would be moral behavior, because without god isn’t the only condition of the hypothetical.[/quote]

A hypothetical is just that. It is a thought experiment, with certain assumptions. I’m not here to debate whether or not the assumptions are objectively true. I was just curious how believers thought people would act, in a universe where there really was no god or afterlife.

Again:

I’m not asking if you think the hypothetical could happen. I realize you believe god created everything, so obviously the hypothetical would be impossible since nothing would exist. I’m asking you to envision a world where there was no supernatural being and no afterlife, and what behavior in that world might be like.

If your beliefs are so bound up in the idea of a god, and everything depending on that god, that you can’t envision the scenario, that’s perfectly fine. Feel free not to respond to the scenario.