No, I never said any of these things.

I'd like for you to answer the question.

So morality is based on what we would object to if it happened to us?  It's wrong to do that solely on the basis that my victim would object to it?

In other words... if someone gives consent for something, that makes it morally correct?

 

You honestly tell me that's not where you were coming from? 

really? You're not going to at some point jump in with Aha! morality comes from god, you atheist fools, bet you never thought of that!

I'm sorry for making that assumption, then...

Anyway, I know that when someone hits me it hurts. Therefore I make a note not to hurt others, because I generally like others, and I think if I hit them it hurt's them too. That's just the kind of guy I am.

So, If i think of being raped kidnapped and tortured I find the idea somewhat distasteful and wouldn't want to do that to another living being as I believe that we only have one life and I like my life and would not want to take someone else's.

So do onto others as they would onto you is a good basis for morality, to me anyway.

(The people who wrote the bible thought it was a good idea too, that's why they put it in there).

 

And what if a society that tolerated such actions DID manage to function and last?  Would it then be okay?

And what if this little girl's family wasn't hurt by what happened?  What if they hated this girl and wished to disown her?  And what if this girl was masochistic and suicidal and yet scientists found no abnormalities in her brain which would qualify her as being mentally incompetent?

Would it then be okay?

You presenting a lot of empirical claims, which seems to be leading you in the direction of utilitarianism.

 

 

If I promise not to do that, then will you engage in this dialogue with me?

I know that atheists are not used to being in the hot seat since by their own admission, the onus is typically on theists to prove a positive claim.  So I think it's interesting to turn the tables, so to speak.

Are you up to the challenge?

Your what if's are ridiculous. What if drinking drano didn't harm or kill you? Guess that means nothing is wrong with drinking drano. The fact is these things DO harm society and a person who actually wanted to be tortured to death would by definition have something wrong with them (Masochists don't want to be hurt to the point of maiming. ) Nobody wants to actually be "raped" - by definition rape is against ones will. And again, children can't give consent.

IF drinking drano didn't harm or kill you, then there would be nothing wrong with drinking drano. 

I have no problem admitting that.

Now... can you answer my question in the same way?  If a society functioned even after they permitted such behavior, would that behavior be permissible?

Well, chuck, the problem is you've slipped in the word 'wrong'; not a single thing in the world (including the scenario you've just posted) is intrinsically 'wrong' (or intrinsically 'right', for that matter). The activity would be sickening, in my opinion (and I would imagine that of any sane, rational person), and there are a number of good reasons not to go out and do something (as well as why we consider such acts disgusting):

 - The risk trumps the potential reward. A paternal agent might seek-out vengeance against you, in contemporary times you may be arrested and jailed (possibly executed, depending on where you live), a good samaritan may discover you in the act and maim or kill you, etc, etc...

 - There is no motivation (or none that you stated up front) for you to commit the deed. Animals don't expend that kind of energy on a whim - raping and murdering another member of your own species will take plenty of time & effort, and we've evolved tendancies for reserving our calories until we have a goal to use them towards.

 - Complex organisms like humans have evolved a sensation known as 'empathy'. This is a physical chemical reaction that causes a sort of 'pain' and/or nausea whenever we see injury inflicted on members of our own species (and, in our case, even members of other animal species whom we find 'cute'). Unless you're a clinical sociopath (or are otherwise able to overwhelm the one emotion with a stronger one), empathy would prevent you from enjoying the deed.

 

Now, with the above in mind, I would say what you did was disgusting and easily worthy of criminal euthanasia because you appear to lack any respect for contemporary social contracts involving consent & reasonable freedom from harm (and are therefore a threat our rule of law), you appear to lack any respect for the well-being of members of your fellow species (and are therefore a threat to human survival) and you appear completely unbounded by standard psychological paradigms (and are therefore a threat for repeated offense). This is where the subjective desires of the collective, as a consensus, are now examined:

The consensus I share in is that we want a rule of law, we want humans to survive and we want to ensure that people who continually violate the rule of law / social contracts of the time are dealt with in such a manner that they are no longer a possible threat to others.

 

Essentially, the action taken with the little girl would alienate you from the group - and isolation is one of the worst fates possible for a social creature.

The basis is more or less as Matt told you a reverse Golden rule. Don't do unto others that which you don't want done to you. As I would not personally like to be raped, tortured, and burned to death it is not something I would consider doing to others.  Humans in order to survive needed as many members as possible to do so. This developed into an important group value. This again is because for a civilization to survive killing off one another or doing harm to members of the group reduces the overall group's possibility to survive. Also if you were of the sort that disregards the empathy all humans have you would be an anomaly to the group for such actions as you describe. This would again suggest your need to be eradicated as you might continue to do further harm to the group. 

A "what if" here requires you to detail why the civilization's overall survival is not hurt. As you cannot know what the little girl might have done for the group in the future you cannot claim killing her did not cause harm. 

Why a little girl? Why not a little boy? What is considered 'little'? Why use a torture technique? Why kill by fire? Why move the burnt up corpse to the river, why not bury it? 

This really is a good question, and one that shouldn't be tiptoed around.

First, I think it worth saying that most, if not all, of what you have described could be justified by passages from the Old Testament. So it is safe to say that if morality does have a divine origin, that origin is not found in the Biblical god.

Now to tackle the meat of the subject. To give a short answer, I would have to say that our morality comes partially from our temperament, but mostly from the influence of our family, peers, and society. Children are not born moral. They will lie, steal, and cheat without regret until they are caught at it. Kids will dip their hand into the cookie jar and blame it on their siblings. They will bully weaker children. They behave in an amoral and almost sociopathic manner until their behavior is halted. Some children are worse about this than others, and this is where individual temperament comes to play. Interaction and often negative responses from society causes most of them to curb this amoral behavior. We learn to feel bad for others. We aren't born with this, and we don't suddenly realize it when we are dipped in water that has been mumbled over by a shaman. We develop empathy through social interaction and the repercussions administered from failure to obey certain society determined rules.

But this is only a short term answer. It doesn't explain where their parents got their morality, or where the grand parents got theirs. We get only an infinite regression from this. We have to look deeper.

And so we look back to a time of tribes and clans. If these clans are to succeed, they need to form a cohesive society that does not destroy itself from within. Certain things must be off limit. If the clan kills its own members without discretion, the clan is unable to reproduce, dying out quickly. If the clan destroys its own females before reproducing with them, the same end is in store.

But if the clan protects its own members while attacking rival clans, it may succeed, providing the other clans are less powerful and unable to retaliate effectively. We see just such an evolution of morality in the Bible with the Hebrew having one set of rules for their tribe, but different, homicidal rules for other tribes.

However, if the tribe finds it desirable to trade with another tribe, such a double standard will cause trade to break down quickly. The tribe must apply a similar if not equal standard of behavior to their trade partners. And should a tribe find itself in a position of being weaker than a neighboring tribe, it is in the weaker tribes best interest to encourage peace and tolerance. The stronger tribe may not buy this suggestion, but if there is a possibility that crushing the weaker tribe might weaken the strong tribe enough that another equally strong tribe might take advantage of their temporary weakness, the stronger tribe may see the wisdom in allowing the weaker tribe to coexist with it. Alliances can then become mutually beneficial, and city states can be formed, offering mutual protection and rules, while working to undermine or conquer other tribes and city states. Again, we find reflection of this in the Old Testament. The trible code of ethics gets applied outside of the tribe.

Societies eventually reach a point where relative stability can be found. They have achieved a sort of homeostasis that governs acceptable actions. Without these principles, their societies would collapse, or would be internally weakened to the point that outside agents were able to bring them down. The Roman Empire would be an example of the latter. What was true with small tribes holds just as true now. The stabilizing factors that cause the society to adhere must be preserved. Evolution will automatically weed out the cultures that are inherently self destructive. Their culture will fail to pass on its heritage, leaving more internally cooperative cultures to fill the void. Even then, demonization of an enemy is frequent. Having been culturally programmed to find certain behaviors unacceptable, the members of a given society will resort to demonizing an enemy, and then proceed to rape, pillage, and plunder in a manner that none of them would have ever imagined back home. Their values suddenly don't apply to the enemy.

Now, this brings us to the hated child. Let us disregard the fact that we have been conditioned for several thousand years to find such brutality reprehensible. We still could not allow it because too many in society are incapable of sound reasoning. If we allowed it once, multitudes would make the false conclusion that if one little girl could be tortured, raped, and killed, then all of them could. They would make the false assumption that if one set of parents didn't care, all sets of parents wouldn't care. We keep our rules in place therefore, not to prevent those of sound mind from running amok, but to keep the hoards of people lacking critical thinking skills from jumping from one faulty conclusion to another and destroying society.

And in order to give these rules more punch, we attribute them to various gods. Hammurapi did this by implying that his code of laws was handed to him directly from the sun god Shamash. Knowing that his followers weren't always reasonable, Hammurabi conveys the message that not only will he be upset if they break these rules, but Shamash will slap them around for it. We continue this even today, with Christians thinking that they get into heaven by following the rules, but go to hell if they disobey the rules.

Which is interesting, because this means that only atheists are the ones that actually are moral. Because of our conditioning by society, because of our temperament,  because our ancestors by biological necessity selected genes that were more cooperative, and because of empathy, we behave because we feel it is the right thing to do. Christians on the other hand, lack morality. Instead they operate  under coercion, fearing divine retribution for their misbehavior and expecting a heavenly reward for their good conduct. This, I suspect , is why so many Christians assume that atheism leads to murder, rape, and torture. Lacking true morality along with the critical thinking skills of the atheist, this is the behavior they would resort to were it not for the coercion of their belief system. Having never had morality of their own, they cannot imagine how those of us that do have it can continue to exist. Now obviously, not all atheists have morals. Certainly some gun control Nazi atheists lack it ( snicker ), but mostly we have a solid grasp on where our behavior comes from, and lack the need for an invisible sky daddy watching our every move in order to behave. I personally don't harm others because I believe that this life is all they have. No fairy godfather is going to kiss their boo-boos and make them all better after death. This is all they have, and my empathy forbids me from wronging them.

Kevin--

Let's define "wrong" in the following way:  An action is wrong if the act is something that anyone ought not to do. 

If you feel that an action is "sickening", then I presume that you believe that no human or any being in particular ought to do it.

So my question, Kevin, is this: WHY should I not do it? 

Your answer is that it may result in negative consequences and/or that there is no reward or motive.  You are taking a consequentialist stance on morality.

So I ask again, what if the circumstances were not as you posited?  Could you imagine some sort of alternative universe where my act would be okay? 

Because the garden gnome in my fridge told me so, and he would tell you too if only you believed in him enough... or maybe it has something to do with what Kevin already said:

Now regardless of what you think of atheists, you're not going to get any validation here for your morbid fantasies with little girls.  Your best bet would be to find some kind of forum where priests chat.

I've already responded to Kevin.  What you are saying is that he said it is wrong to inflict physical and emotion harm on someone because that may result in further pain on you.  His other two points were basically stating that my example could not ever happen because there is no motivation and complex human organisms have empathy.

And now you want to stray from the actual question and go on the assault of personal attacks by saying that by using that as an example, I am somehow condoning that act.... just because you do not want to confront the fact that your moral basis is seriously flawed.

 

Wow, I've never seen someone with so much faith in human society.  LOL

Yes, which you then turned around and asked him another "what if" question where there were no consequences. 

You're question has been answered.  You said you came here already knowing the answer to your question.  You aren't going to accept any answer except for "goddidit", which you were called out for in the very first reply.  So instead of accepting the answers which were given, answers that are based off of what we know, based off of reality, you instead want to "imagine some sort of alternative universe" where the rules of reality don't apply. 

The basis on what is good for society is a way better way to base morality than on what some fictional god says. First of all you have to pick which fictional being is the right one - their morality isn't the same - Jesus says drinking alcohol and eating pork is OK but you can only have 1 wife, while allah says 3 wives is fine but no pork or alcohol. Sometimes their own moral advice is in conflict. Then you have to take the actual morality they endorse along with the bullshit - Yeah, it's wrong to murder or kill (there is no moral ban on rape in the buybull unless you consider it adultery/fornication, and then there's that inconvenient part where God orders it ) but premarital sex, eating certain foods, wearing certain fabrics and sex between unmarried consenting adults is fine.

 

The "what if" thing is just a bullshit game. The FACT is that such acts do harm society and imagining otherwise is no different than imagining drinking drano to be harmless or if red was green would it be ok to go through the red light. Society makes laws because we decide banning a particular action is beneficial - generally the harm from allowing it would be greater than that from not having the freedom to do it. Most people here would agree banning pornography is not a good law because the loss of freedom of speech would be greater than any potential harm from allowing it (if there even is any. ) I'd sometimes like to be able to kill someone that pisses me off but don't want that to be legal because I in fact often piss people off (especially Christians and/or conservatives) and the harm from my being killed would be greater than the pleasure from being able to kill a motherfucker that pisses me off. It might be cool to be able to drive 150 mph on the freeway but the vast majority of people realize it's worth giving up the freedom to do so in order to have the freeway be a relatively safe place to drive. There are plenty of things people disagree with on morality - most people feel sex between consenting unmarried adults is fine - fundies don't - nearly everyone would feel an adult male having sex with a 6 year old girl, even if she agreed would be very wrong. A lot of fucktards think abortion is as bad as murder, I consider it no worse than swatting a fly. Most people are somewhere in between. Most of the members here feel homosexuality is fine (see above about sex between consenting adults. ) Fred Phelps thinks it warrants execution. Extreme capitalists are fine with a huge income gap between rich and poor - I want it as close as possible - again, most people are in between.

"Another 'what if' question where there were no consequences"   

????????  Umm, okay.

My point was to expose atheists as utilitarians, consequentialists, and moral relativists... and I've done that nicely.

And you were so stupid that you, along with the peanut gallery, actually took the bait. 

And I thank you.

 

I'm already aware of how we learn our morals.  The question is not regarding the genesis of knowledge.  It is regarding the justification of knowledge.  What justification can you give me for the truth value of the moral claims that you espouse?  Is it just based on what you believe will benefit society in the long run?

 

If you're looking for some intrinsic morality, you won't find it as it does not exist. As I suggested in my earlier post, the justification for any given moral code is decided - arbitrarily - by the zeitgeist. It is guided to some degree by our social instincts.

To be clear: There is no justification for any moral code, only a loose tacit agreement by a given society on a moral code.

The examination of Gacy's brain was cursory by today's standards, so it doesn't tell us much. That we can't yet detect the particulars of the mechanics of social behavior (or lack thereof) in a human brain does not negate the fact that sociopathic behavior is (a) uncommon and (b) behaviorally quantifiable and regularly observable in individual sociopaths and differentiable from 'average/normal' behavior.

Okay, so you admit that you are a moral relativist.  Thank you.

It's not that simple. There is evidence that humans do have an innate social instinct. There is also evidence that our brains are the mechanism from which consciousness emerges. It is therefore likely that in anyone lacking those instincts has some difference in the structure of that mechanism. Modern studies of sociopathic brains don't demonstrate any gross structural changes, but do demonstrate subtle differences in common. There isn't enough evidence in yet for any solid conclusions, but we do seem to be on our way.

Don't put words in my mouth, dear. Technology and knowledge of neurophysiology have advanced significantly since then, meaning their best examination at the time could easily have missed structural difference.

 

Not what I said, dear. I said the zeitgeist changes, and there is no innate justification for what the zeitgeist settles on.

"Moral laws cannot be universal" isn't contradictory. It's a statement of fact, not a moral law. Statements of fact can be universal.

Here's your argument:

(1) It has been observed that most people are empathetic.

(2) Empathy comes from a part of our brain.

(3) Therefore, people who aren't empathetic are probably missing that part of the brain.

Not only do you turn evilness into a symptom (which means that serial killers are not responsible for what they do), but your argument is totally speculative.   

And what makes you think they still are not examining the brain today in light of all the advancements in the field?  And what if they still don't find any differences?  Are you still going to stick your fingers in your ears and scream, "LA LA LA" or will you admit that sociopaths are not crazy and actually know what they are doing?

Care to explain how that's not moral relativism?