How Valuable is Life?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]Karado wrote:
Varq communicated lovingly: “Would you give up your life right now if it meant that your loved ones would never be hungry or poor for the rest of their lives?”

As long as it’s quick and painless… BTW Jesus Christ never lied, so I’m assured paradise on that sacrifice rather than worrying were the fuck I was ending up as a very flawed believer anyway…thanks!

Interesting you didn’t answer your own question, be careful how you do though, you don’t have any faith where you’re ultimately gonna end up yet…I sense you are agnostic and your posts overall seem to defend Islam more so than Christianity.

Fence sitters are the worst kind in God’s eyes…Interesting that the very first people who get thrown into the lake of fire, are the cowards.

[/quote]

A Coward is someone who submits to fear rather than finding the courage to face it down. Some of us look at organized religion as peddlers of fear. Threatening your soul will go here or there depending on whether and how much you buy into this or that belief.
[/quote]
Well then you don’t know much about organized religion. Believe it or not, and I am guessing not, that we have no interest in threatening people’s soul. We only strive to be the best we can be, understand that we are fallible and overcome our weaknesses. We strive to have the best relationship with God that we can.
You have the mainstream media view of religion. Understanding only what you are fed by them, which is far from the reality of it.
It’s not about threatening hell if you don’t walk right.

[quote]
Who is the braver person? The jihadist suicide bomber, or the agnostic or atheist dude who was killed defending people against the bomber? The Agnostic/Atheist has no comfort or belief in an afterlife and does what he believes is right regardless of Gods existence.

According to you, I’m a coward. Thanks, and Semper Fi. [/quote]

A person with a fucked up understanding doesn’t make them a bad person or a coward. Doing the right thing is always the right thing. The good news is in the end, we all get to find out who was right.[/quote]

So people don’t do things out of fear of their God? Priests and such don’t preach that there are 3 places for the soul? Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and the only way to heaven is through Jesus, or Allah, or whatever?

Because, I’ve been told by many that I’m destined for hell because I have heard the word of God and turned away from it, unless I repent and let Jesus back in. Seems like a threat to me.

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[quote]Severiano wrote:

So people don’t do things out of fear of their God? Priests and such don’t preach that there are 3 places for the soul? Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and the only way to heaven is through Jesus, or Allah, or whatever?

Because, I’ve been told by many that I’m destined for hell because I have heard the word of God and turned away from it, unless I repent and let Jesus back in. Seems like a threat to me.

[/quote]

If you tell someone “you touch them there third rail you gonna die” is that a threat?

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[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
For the same reason I draw anyone into a debate of any kind.

To get them to think. [/quote]

I am noticing now that people tend not to actually think when they’re engaged in debates.[/quote]

They just don’t think like you even when you think you’ve made brilliant points.[/quote]

=D

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[quote]Karado wrote:
So you’re looking at Islam then, that’s fine…I like how their Paradise sounds, all I’m saying
now is to stop drivin’ that rice burner and pick a side…not trying to put you in that uncomfortable
psychological ‘‘corner’’ many Christians tend to do that I fucking hate BTW, that’s not how
it’s done IMO…

Do I have ‘‘problems’’ with my faith that I question? Of 'Course I do, MANY, but thank
goodness we’re don’t have to know every single thing about it…I guess that’s why they call it “faith”,
no matter what Religion you may choose.[/quote]

I have picked a side. Like I said, I drive a Toyota. You may disparagingly call it a “rice burner” (it actually burns gasoline, same as Chevys, Fords and Dodges), but it has over a quarter-million miles on it and has not once let me down, in the dead of a Minnesota winter, in Idaho thunderstorms, or climbing over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used to drive a Ford F350. It was big, it was loud, and it was dumb.

I even was a member of the Ford Truck Enthusiasts forum, a congregation, if you will, of people who sang the praises of their big, loud, dumb trucks, and talked about the mods they were making to them so as to make them even bigger, louder and dumber. Not everyone on that forum was big, loud and dumb themselves, but many were.

I got rid of that F350, because I was ending up spending more time fixing it than I was driving it. And I bought a Toyota and never looked back.

It’s smaller, quieter and smarter than the Ford was. I like that.

I don’t feel the need to join a big, loud, dumb side.

Smaller, quieter and smarter suits me just fine.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
What makes a pickup dumb and smart?[/quote]

It’s a subjective thing, I guess.

What seems dumb to me might make perfect sense to the owner.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
What makes a pickup dumb and smart?[/quote]

I really can’t judge someone else’s truck as being objectively “good” or “bad”. If it works for them, hey, more power to them.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
What makes a pickup dumb and smart?[/quote]

I know there has to be a reason for it, even if I can’t see that reason myself.

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And then there is Toyota.

Seems pretty smart to me.

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[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Right, but you’ve only repeated an oft-repeated tautology: that a human life is valuable because it’s a human life. It would be like bein asked “why is a dollar valuable” and answering “because it’s worth a dollar”.

Tell me why a fetal life, or a child’s life, or my life or yours has objective, intrinsic value, if indeed you believe it does. Or is it, like a dollar, only valuable because everyone generally believes it is?[/quote]
Is there a such thing as objective value?

Earlier in the thread you mentioned cows having objective value since we use fertilizer and meat, etc. But that value is subjective. A vegetarian wouldn’t likely value the meat much, and I wouldn’t much value the crap

Saying that we could sell it doesn’t fix it, since it runs into the same thing as the dollar. Market prices are just a mega combination of everybody’s subjective value system

I don’t think men are capable of objectively valuing anything. In trying to disprove this, I am thinking of trying at valuing “air” or the sun. We might all agree that these are pretty darn valuable, its still not objective. We can pretty much say they are as valuable as Humanity, but how valuable is that? I don’t think the Flying Spaghetti Monster values us very highly, for example.

If a monotheistic God exists, His thoughts/values would be objective. That’s the only supposed objective valuation I could think of

What’s it matter to you anyways? Why the need for objectivity? Layers upon layers of subjective complexity just doesn’t do it for ya?

What you feel is real, everything else. …

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
What makes a pickup dumb and smart?[/quote]
It can’t be dumb and smart

… You a pickup driver, Push?

:slight_smile:

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[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

So people don’t do things out of fear of their God? Priests and such don’t preach that there are 3 places for the soul? Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and the only way to heaven is through Jesus, or Allah, or whatever?

Because, I’ve been told by many that I’m destined for hell because I have heard the word of God and turned away from it, unless I repent and let Jesus back in. Seems like a threat to me.

[/quote]

If you tell someone “you touch them there third rail you gonna die” is that a threat?[/quote]

Not at all, that’s a warning that comes from knowledge.

When you tell someone they can believe this, or your soul will spend eternity in hell. That isn’t something any of us can know. It’s a certain type of appeal to force that is linked to either eternal death or eternal suffering vs. eternal life, and a logical fallacy.

It’s recognized by most, I’m sure you see it as well. I see it during funerals, and have felt it often in the past, the fear of death that is. If you ask me, it’s an evil thing to do, to use the fear of death and promise of eternal life to get people to follow your God. Especially when it’s packaged in such a way that the only way to heaven is through your God. It doesn’t sit with me at all, for me it like trying to believe something you know is a lie. You cant believe something is a lie and have faith that the lie is the truth at the same time.

294

Gents, there’s already scholastic language for the subjects you are speaking about. Value Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Cheers. Hopefully someone reads. BTW it defines objective value, intrinsic value, extrinsic value and such. Might save some time.

For you Varq, is there such a thing as intrinsic value at all? Here on this link. Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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[quote]Severiano wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:

So people don’t do things out of fear of their God? Priests and such don’t preach that there are 3 places for the soul? Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and the only way to heaven is through Jesus, or Allah, or whatever?

Because, I’ve been told by many that I’m destined for hell because I have heard the word of God and turned away from it, unless I repent and let Jesus back in. Seems like a threat to me.

[/quote]

If you tell someone “you touch them there third rail you gonna die” is that a threat?[/quote]

Not at all, that’s a warning that comes from knowledge.

When you tell someone they can believe this, or your soul will spend eternity in hell. That isn’t something any of us can know. It’s a certain type of appeal to force that is linked to either eternal death or eternal suffering vs. eternal life, and a logical fallacy.

It’s recognized by most, I’m sure you see it as well. I see it during funerals, and have felt it often in the past, the fear of death that is. If you ask me, it’s an evil thing to do, to use the fear of death and promise of eternal life to get people to follow your God. Especially when it’s packaged in such a way that the only way to heaven is through your God. It doesn’t sit with me at all, for me it like trying to believe something you know is a lie. You cant believe something is a lie and have faith that the lie is the truth at the same time. [/quote]

What you believe to be true is not the point.

The point is that if they believe what they believe to be true they are not threatening anyone.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
Whoops! Looks like Toyota owners have been known to engage in the same silly “dumb” behavior.

What will we do?[/quote]

Buy a Toyota because they cannot be killed unless you are a dumbass.

That being said, I killed one.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
What makes a pickup dumb and smart?[/quote]

I really can’t judge someone else’s truck as being objectively “good” or “bad”. If it works for them, hey, more power to them.

[/quote]

Dis one be not Ford.[/quote]

True. Dat be a '79 J20, if I not be mistook.