Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
Offline Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by putting forward their free will argument and placing all the blame on mankind.
That usually sounds like ----God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy. Such statements simply avoid God's culpability as the author and creator of human nature.
Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
If all do evil/sin by nature then, the evil/sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not do evil/sin. Can we then help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil and sin is all human generated and in this sense, I agree with Christians, but for completely different reasons. Evil is mankind’s responsibility and not some imaginary God’s. Free will is something that can only be taken. Free will cannot be given not even by a God unless it has been forcibly withheld.
Much has been written to explain evil and sin but I see as a natural part of evolution.
Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created. Without intent to do evil, no act should be called evil.
In secular courts, this is called mens rea. Latin for an evil mind or intent and without it, the court will not find someone guilty even if they know that they are the perpetrator of the act.
Evil then is only human to human when they know they are doing evil and intend harm.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.
Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.
This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.
Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, you should see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. Wherever it came from, God or nature, without evolution we would go extinct. We must do good and evil.
There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.
These links speak to theistic evolution.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=1205
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#g/c/6F8036F680C1DBEB
If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.
If the above is not convincing enough for you then show me where in this baby evil lives or is a part of it’s nature and instincts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA
Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline I'm so tired of this S&M bullshit excuse, not just here but in pretty much every fucking ethical discussion I seem to get into. If you really wanna be pedantic then fine, let's make it uninvited pain is bad. Now argue how that ethical statement fails.
- Login to post comments
Offline Read above. I did not say S & M were evil from their POV.
I said most would see inflicted pain as evil but not an S & M.
I'm not so sure that most would see pain inflicted in an S&M situation as evil. In the abstract, if you asked "is inflicting pain evil" you might get a majority to say "yeah" but if you ask about a specific S&M situation most would probably change their answer. How you ask a question greatly influences the answers you will receive by influencing how precise the answer is and how much thought is put into answering the question.
If there is no victim created then there is no evil FMPOV.
They can flog each other all they want and I would not object if it is a voluntary and consented to activity.
That is extremely different from the previous definitions of evil you have offered in this thread.
Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.
My short definition is anything I do not like.
I do not agree with your view of pain. If I inflict needless pain to someone, it is definitely evil.
S & M would not agree but that is their twisted view.
I do recognize that pain a non-inflicted pain can have value to indicate to us that there is a problem, like putting one's hand on a stove and getting the pain of burning, and some pains indicate that something is healing but any needlessly inflicted pain is evil.
So in regard to the OP, using a broad definition of evil, where evil is any pain that is inflicted that is not necessary then sure, everyone inflicts pain on others that could be avoided. In the OP you go so far as to describe competition as evil, a definition I do not agree with at all, but given that definition obviously everyone has to compete at some point in their lives to get something that is limited. I consider it absurd to describe someone competing for a job position as "evil" or a football player competing to win the game as "evil". Such a broad use of the term renders it meaningless.
By using a more strict definition of evil, then most people will never commit an evil act. I suspect that as most people apply the term in regular conversation, most people are not evil and do not commit evil acts.
At the same time, if one of them kills the other, then I would jail him for sure because we now have a victim who did not consent to die. If he did consent, then I would not jail the killer.
Have you seen, They Kill Horses don't they?
I would let the killer go free. Would you?
No, because it is illegal. For practical purposes, such actions need to be illegal because it can be very difficult for courts to determine if the person killed actually consented. Since they are dead, you can't ask. I can see assisted suicide being legalized in controlled situations where the person being killed can clearly consent and possible abuses of the law can be avoided. If the law was well worded to ensure consent and prevent abuses I would support that law. But until such a law is passed, it is illegal and if you kill someone you should be jailed.
However, I would not consider the act to be evil. But my definition of evil is much more narrow than yours. I would not consider a bank robber evil but I would agree that bank robbers should be jailed.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
- Login to post comments
Offline I'm so tired of this S&M bullshit excuse, not just here but in pretty much every fucking ethical discussion I seem to get into. If you really wanna be pedantic then fine, let's make it uninvited pain is bad. Now argue how that ethical statement fails.
It does not. But does show that you recognize that evil is subjective.
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline Ok. Let's do it here.Let me give the logic trail.
If you have something, anything, including a free will, then you can give it up.
I can't give up my sexual preference or favorite color. Try again.
If retards had tasty babyback ribs I might consider it. Although, on a more serious note
Right, so billions of animals ground up annually in torture chambers isn't even worth taking seriously to you.
I also wouldn't put snakes in a factory farm. Why? Because they are not nearly as tasty.
Yes, that's the only thing that matters, isn't it. If you can make my sandwich taste better then I don't give a fuck if I have to boil you alive to make it happen. Great moral compass you got there.
Factory farms serve the purpose of providing large amounts of food to a large population.
They serve the purpose of producing food we want, not what we need.
Putting animals in a factory farm just because would be strange and perhaps immoral.
Right, so you can't even say for certain that torturing other species "just because" would be immoral. I mean is that really a hard fucking question?
I agree that factory farms are not ideal conditions
That's like saying concentration camps aren't ideal conditions. It's true, but not really the first term I'd go for.
however, they are necessary to provide enough meat to our species and providing for our species is more important than being nice to other species.
Right, kinda like producing enough time to relax and play golf is necessary for our race, so it's more important than freeing the black people from slavery. Cool trick btw how you changed providing us with meat to simply providing for our species. Kinda like "slaughtering the enemy is crucial for providing our country with lollipops, and providing for our country is more important than being nice to them".
You really don't get it that the improved taste of your food isn't worth the suffering of the animals? If I inflicted the pain on you that the chicken you're eating feels during it's life in it's shithole of a farm, there's absolutely no fucking way you'd agree to pay that price for it. The only reason you do it is because someone else is paying the price. In other words, you're the rapist getting the orgasm while someone else is getting the trauma, way to go.
The circumstances are not irrelevant. Pigs are tasty, dogs not so much, so we raise pigs in factory farms because to provide enough of them to feed our population.
Am I supposed to believe you didn't understand I was comparing the circumstance of a human and an animal suffering, not the relative taste of different animals? Or did you just decide to deflect the question because your cognitive dissonance won't even let you try to answer it?
Either way the animal dies quite brutally in a way I would consider immoral to kill a completely innocent human.
I really don't care about death much, how an animal (or human) lives is infinitely more meaningful. The method of death is of course still a part of life so that does matter. I also really don't think a bullet is nowhere near as brutal as whatever shit animals go through when they die "naturally". If you give me the choise of a bullet or any random natural death I'm going for the bullet without hesitation. Hunters are propably doing the animals a favor in the majority of cases.
I find the distinction you are trying to draw here rather arbitrary. If a person killed a human who just happened to be walking through the woods and has done nothing to them I would consider them an asshole and I assume you would as well.
Well they propably are an asshole in the sense they think they're doing something wrong but do it anyway for whatever petty reason they have, like stealing the wallet. If we separate the intent from the analysis and only focus on the outcome though, the fact someome died really isn't a big deal. If you can kill me painlessly by shooting me in the head or whatever I really don't see what the huge ethical crime was, I'll be dead and so I won't have a welfare to consider anymore. I do still have the same intuitive negative reaction to murder as most people btw, I just find I can't really back it up philosophically.
Either it is wrong to kill an animal for the purposes of eating or it isn't.
There's a huge difference between killing an existing animal and breeding one so you can torture it before it's death.
- Login to post comments
Offline Greatest I am wrote:Read above. I did not say S & M were evil from their POV.
I said most would see inflicted pain as evil but not an S & M.
I'm not so sure that most would see pain inflicted in an S&M situation as evil. In the abstract, if you asked "is inflicting pain evil" you might get a majority to say "yeah" but if you ask about a specific S&M situation most would probably change their answer. How you ask a question greatly influences the answers you will receive by influencing how precise the answer is and how much thought is put into answering the question.
Greatest I am wrote:If there is no victim created then there is no evil FMPOV.
They can flog each other all they want and I would not object if it is a voluntary and consented to activity.
That is extremely different from the previous definitions of evil you have offered in this thread.
Greatest I am wrote:Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.
Greatest I am wrote:My short definition is anything I do not like.
Greatest I am wrote:
I do not agree with your view of pain. If I inflict needless pain to someone, it is definitely evil.
S & M would not agree but that is their twisted view.
I do recognize that pain a non-inflicted pain can have value to indicate to us that there is a problem, like putting one's hand on a stove and getting the pain of burning, and some pains indicate that something is healing but any needlessly inflicted pain is evil.
So in regard to the OP, using a broad definition of evil, where evil is any pain that is inflicted that is not necessary then sure, everyone inflicts pain on others that could be avoided. In the OP you go so far as to describe competition as evil, a definition I do not agree with at all, but given that definition obviously everyone has to compete at some point in their lives to get something that is limited. I consider it absurd to describe someone competing for a job position as "evil" or a football player competing to win the game as "evil". Such a broad use of the term renders it meaningless.
By using a more strict definition of evil, then most people will never commit an evil act. I suspect that as most people apply the term in regular conversation, most people are not evil and do not commit evil acts.
Greatest I am wrote:At the same time, if one of them kills the other, then I would jail him for sure because we now have a victim who did not consent to die. If he did consent, then I would not jail the killer.
Have you seen, They Kill Horses don't they?
I would let the killer go free. Would you?
No, because it is illegal. For practical purposes, such actions need to be illegal because it can be very difficult for courts to determine if the person killed actually consented. Since they are dead, you can't ask. I can see assisted suicide being legalized in controlled situations where the person being killed can clearly consent and possible abuses of the law can be avoided. If the law was well worded to ensure consent and prevent abuses I would support that law. But until such a law is passed, it is illegal and if you kill someone you should be jailed.
However, I would not consider the act to be evil. But my definition of evil is much more narrow than yours. I would not consider a bank robber evil but I would agree that bank robbers should be jailed.
We have no basic argument and see things in about the same way except for your last remark.
If a thief is not doing evil when he robs another, creates a victim IOW, why are you jailing him.
Did he do wrong/evil or not and if not, why punish him?
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline Greatest I am wrote:I can't give up my sexual preference or favorite color. Try again.Ok. Let's do it here.
Let me give the logic trail.
If you have something, anything, including a free will, then you can give it up.
No need if you can think.
Thanks for proving that you have a free will by choosing not to comply.
You did make that choice right?
Or was that someone else's choice?
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline We have no basic argument and see things in about the same way except for your last remark.
If a thief is not doing evil when he robs another, creates a victim IOW, why are you jailing him.
Did he do wrong/evil or not and if not, why punish him?
Regards
DL
Our only disagreement is the use of the word "evil". I don't see the words "wrong" and "evil" meaning the same thing. Everything that is evil is wrong, everything that is wrong is not necessarily evil. I don't think using evil as broadly as you are in this thread is common usage of the term and makes your OP pointless. If you broaden any term as much as you have evil of course it applies to everyone. It is the equivalent of stating that "everyone is beautiful" and broadening the word beautiful to a point that includes everyone. Common usage of "beautiful" is to distinguish more attractive people from less attractive people. Common usage of "evil" is to distinguish people who are really bad from those who are less bad.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
- Login to post comments
Offline Greatest I am wrote:We have no basic argument and see things in about the same way except for your last remark.
If a thief is not doing evil when he robs another, creates a victim IOW, why are you jailing him.
Did he do wrong/evil or not and if not, why punish him?
Regards
DL
Our only disagreement is the use of the word "evil". I don't see the words "wrong" and "evil" meaning the same thing. Everything that is evil is wrong, everything that is wrong is not necessarily evil. I don't think using evil as broadly as you are in this thread is common usage of the term and makes your OP pointless. If you broaden any term as much as you have evil of course it applies to everyone. It is the equivalent of stating that "everyone is beautiful" and broadening the word beautiful to a point that includes everyone. Common usage of "beautiful" is to distinguish more attractive people from less attractive people. Common usage of "evil" is to distinguish people who are really bad from those who are less bad.
No argument again.
We are speaking of things that humans do to each other in either competing or cooperating.
In terms of evolution we all do evil or compete and create victims.
Sure some more than others but we all do some.
Give an example of something that is covered by your "that is wrong is not necessarily evil" please.
I cannot think of anything and love to learn.
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline No need if you can think.Thanks for proving that you have a free will by choosing not to comply.
You did make that choice right?
Or was that someone else's choice?
Regards
DL
The fact my brain makes a decision doesn't prove my conciousness is behind the wheel.
- Login to post comments
Offline Right, so billions of animals ground up annually in torture chambers isn't even worth taking seriously to you.
No, I take my burger very seriously. Serious enough that I am willing to live with the harm that it causes the animals.
Yes, that's the only thing that matters, isn't it. If you can make my sandwich taste better then I don't give a fuck if I have to boil you alive to make it happen. Great moral compass you got there.
Yep, I will boil my lobster live and not have the slightest twinge of guilt. You are welcome to consider me immoral because of it.
Quote:They serve the purpose of producing food we want, not what we need.Factory farms serve the purpose of providing large amounts of food to a large population.
Debatable. If everyone were vegetarian we would have to dramatically change our current farming practices, maybe we could feed the world without meat eventually, right now we can't. Irrelevant to me though, because even if it was possible to feed all humans without meat I would still support eating it.
Of course, even a vegan leads to the death of many animals. Do you have any idea how many mice, birds and insects die to produce an acre of soybeans? I actually had a discussion with someone on this site where we attempted to calculate the average number of animals that die to feed a human on soybeans for a year. I might have to see if I can track it down.
Right, kinda like producing enough time to relax and play golf is necessary for our race, so it's more important than freeing the black people from slavery.
No because humans get a higher moral value than animals. Human slavery is immoral, using a horse to plow a field is not although both are forcing another being to do physical labor for your personal gain.
You really don't get it that the improved taste of your food isn't worth the suffering of the animals? If I inflicted the pain on you that the chicken you're eating feels during it's life in it's shithole of a farm, there's absolutely no fucking way you'd agree to pay that price for it. The only reason you do it is because someone else is paying the price. In other words, you're the rapist getting the orgasm while someone else is getting the trauma, way to go.
It is worth the suffering. I do not consider trauma experienced by animals as equivalent to trauma experienced by humans. Are all animals equal in your opinion? Does an ant have the same moral value as a pig? Or is it solely based on the development of nerves? How about a rat and a pig?
I really don't care about death much, how an animal (or human) lives is infinitely more meaningful. The method of death is of course still a part of life so that does matter. I also really don't think a bullet is nowhere near as brutal as whatever shit animals go through when they die "naturally". If you give me the choise of a bullet or any random natural death I'm going for the bullet without hesitation. Hunters are propably doing the animals a favor in the majority of cases.
Yet the animals do everything they can to attempt to survive so the animals obviously don't consider it a favor.
If we separate the intent from the analysis and only focus on the outcome though, the fact someome died really isn't a big deal. If you can kill me painlessly by shooting me in the head or whatever I really don't see what the huge ethical crime was, I'll be dead and so I won't have a welfare to consider anymore. I do still have the same intuitive negative reaction to murder as most people btw, I just find I can't really back it up philosophically.
How is it difficult to back up philosophically? When you kill something against its consent you are destroying the most valuable thing it has. Every being only has one life and it is irreplaceable. Most people would rank their life among their most precious possessions. Therefore it is immoral to kill a person without a really good reason for much the same reason it is immoral to blow up someones house without a very good reason.
Basing your morality solely on physical pain does not seem to me to lead to a desirable moral code.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
- Login to post comments
Offline No, I take my burger very seriously. Serious enough that I am willing to live with the harm that it causes the animals.
I take my rapes very seriously, serious enough that I am willing to live with the harm it causes women.
Yep, I will boil my lobster live and not have the slightest twinge of guilt. You are welcome to consider me immoral because of it.
I throw acid on my rape victims' face and cut their tits off, you're welcome to consider me immoral because of it.
Debatable. If everyone were vegetarian we would have to dramatically change our current farming practices, maybe we could feed the world without meat eventually, right now we can't. Irrelevant to me though, because even if it was possible to feed all humans without meat I would still support eating it.
Yeah right, like the area wasted to grow the animals' food somehow can't be used to grow food for people. How many pounds of food do you think it takes to create a pound of meat. This is ridicilous.
Of course, even a vegan leads to the death of many animals. Do you have any idea how many mice, birds and insects die to produce an acre of soybeans?
Yes, let's ignore the food we grow to feed the animals because that doesn't kill any critters, right? Obviously however many animals die due to a vegan diet is by far less than the alternative.
No because humans get a higher moral value than animals. Human slavery is immoral, using a horse to plow a field is not although both are forcing another being to do physical labor for your personal gain.
Women just aren't worth as much so why should I care if they don't like it?
It is worth the suffering. I do not consider trauma experienced by animals as equivalent to trauma experienced by humans.
Oh yeah, those rapes are soooo worth it. I just don't consider women's suffering as important as the horrible anguish I feel when I have a boner and no one around to fuck.
Are all animals equal in your opinion? Does an ant have the same moral value as a pig? Or is it solely based on the development of nerves? How about a rat and a pig?
This is fucking retarded, we're talking about FACTORY FARMING which consist of animals that clearly have a similar capacity for suffering as us. Fix that shit and then I'll have a talk about ants with you.
Yet the animals do everything they can to attempt to survive so the animals obviously don't consider it a favor.
I don't know if you've noticed, but by human standards animals are kinda retarded. If my cat is sick and it knew that shitty tasting medicine I'm trying to force feed it would cure it, it wouldn't resist, so an animal trying to avoid something doesn't prove it's good for it to do so. Also, animals don't do anything to survive, they do stuff to avoid discomfort. They don't even know they're capable of dying.
How is it difficult to back up philosophically? When you kill something against its consent you are destroying the most valuable thing it has.
It's not the most valuable thing, but even if it was, after it's dead it won't miss it. The process of harming something depends on there being a time after the act. If you cut my arm off THEN I cant play tennis anymore. If you make me blind THEN I can't watch titties bounce anymore. IF you kill me THEN...nothing. No discomfort, no deprivation, nothing, so where's the harm?
Every being only has one life and it is irreplaceable.
So's the appendix.
Most people would rank their life among their most precious possessions.
Most people think their life would be meaningless without god. "Let's ask the retards" isn't really a great way of figuring stuff out.
Therefore it is immoral to kill a person without a really good reason for much the same reason it is immoral to blow up someones house without a very good reason.
People survive the blowing up of their house and have welfare to consider afterwards, the same isn't true for the destruction of their conciousness.
Basing your morality solely on physical pain does not seem to me to lead to a desirable moral code.
Emotional pain is just as important.
- Login to post comments
Offline ThunderJones wrote:Greatest I am wrote:ThunderJones wrote:Greatest I am wrote:
No argument and you notice we did not have to define evil.
My short definition is anything I do not like.
Regards
DL
So you believe evil is completely subjective?
I think that for most there are universal standards. Like this clip shows.
http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/17/the_real_differ/
Evil though cannot be said to be universal.
Take pain for instance. If you talk to someone into S & M, he will likely not agree with most that pain is evil and in that sense, evil is subjective.
Regards
DL
Yes the S&M person has a different perspective, but I do not think pain is evil anyways. Like many unpleasant things, it serves an important purpose. It is not evil because it is similair to natural disasters in that it has no intent and pain specifically is not inherently harmful to people. Quite the opposite.
Something like Rape, can be demonstratably shown to be 'evil'. It harms everyone involved and then some. Would you agree?
Absolutely. To rape is to do evil.
I do not agree with your view of pain. If I inflict needless pain to someone, it is definitely evil.
S & M would not agree but that is their twisted view.
I do recognize that pain a non-inflicted pain can have value to indicate to us that there is a problem, like putting one's hand on a stove and getting the pain of burning, and some pains indicate that something is healing but any needlessly inflicted pain is evil.
Regards
DL
If I inflict needless pain on someone I have committed an immoral (evil) act. Pain itself however, is not evil. A knife isn't evil when you are chopping onions and you cut yourself or when someone uses it to stab someone. The person using it is the one who can be called immoral in the latter.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
- Login to post comments
Offline Quote:This is fucking retarded, we're talking about FACTORY FARMING which consist of animals that clearly have a similar capacity for suffering as us. Fix that shit and then I'll have a talk about ants with you.Are all animals equal in your opinion? Does an ant have the same moral value as a pig? Or is it solely based on the development of nerves? How about a rat and a pig?
I'm just trying to figure out where your line is. You compare boiling a lobster or eating hamburger to rape. So do all animals have moral equality to humans, or just some?
I don't know if you've noticed, but by human standards animals are kinda retarded. If my cat is sick and it knew that shitty tasting medicine I'm trying to force feed it would cure it, it wouldn't resist, so an animal trying to avoid something doesn't prove it's good for it to do so. Also, animals don't do anything to survive, they do stuff to avoid discomfort. They don't even know they're capable of dying.
So would you consider it moral to kill humans who have the mental capabilities of animals provided the killing was done in a manner that was quick and relatively painless?
It's not the most valuable thing, but even if it was, after it's dead it won't miss it. The process of harming something depends on there being a time after the act. If you cut my arm off THEN I cant play tennis anymore. If you make me blind THEN I can't watch titties bounce anymore. IF you kill me THEN...nothing. No discomfort, no deprivation, nothing, so where's the harm?
The harm is that a dead person can do none of those things. The fact that they are not around to realize it is irrelevant, you have deprived them of life and everything they could have enjoyed by living it. Would it be immoral to cut the leg off of a paraplegic to have a leg collection in your basement? I would say yes. But using your moral basis I don't see how it would be immoral by your definition, the victim is never going to use the leg and would not feel a thing.
Quote:So's the appendix.Every being only has one life and it is irreplaceable.
I would also consider it immoral (and strange) to go around taking out people appendixes without their permission even if you could do so with a guarantee that they would feel no pain. It is also immoral to rape someone in a coma even though they will never even know it happened.
Quote:Most people think their life would be meaningless without god. "Let's ask the retards" isn't really a great way of figuring stuff out.Most people would rank their life among their most precious possessions.
It is a great way to determine how we should treat each other. If something is important to someone else it is harmful to destroy it even if the item has no importance to you. I would consider it wrong to walk into someones house and tear up their bible even though a bible has literally zero value to me. It is the value to the person being harmed that matters, not value to me.
People survive the blowing up of their house and have welfare to consider afterwards, the same isn't true for the destruction of their conciousness.
So it is not immoral to blow up someones house as long as they are in it and they die but it is immoral if they are not in the house and survive?
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
- Login to post comments
Offline Greatest I am wrote:The fact my brain makes a decision doesn't prove my conciousness is behind the wheel.No need if you can think.
Thanks for proving that you have a free will by choosing not to comply.
You did make that choice right?
Or was that someone else's choice?
Regards
DL
Then whose consciousness is behind the wheel.
If you are being manipulated, you must have some idea who is.
Did you not consciously know what you were writing when you wrote what you did?
Were you surprised to see what had been written in your name?
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline [
If I inflict needless pain on someone I have committed an immoral (evil) act. Pain itself however, is not evil. A knife isn't evil when you are chopping onions and you cut yourself or when someone uses it to stab someone. The person using it is the one who can be called immoral in the latter.
No argument.
Regards
DL
- Login to post comments
Offline I'm just trying to figure out where your line is. You compare boiling a lobster or eating hamburger to rape. So do all animals have moral equality to humans, or just some?
The point of the rape analogy is that women are obviously just as harmable as men. You've done nothing to show why the pain experienced by an animal is somehow less meaningful then ours, considering you know they are built just like us and therefore there's no reason to assume their pain feels any different. You declaring the suffering of a creature meaningless because it has a tail and hooves is no different than me declaring the suffering of a woman meaningless because she doesn't have a penis.
To answer your question, animals have moral equality insofar as they have equal needs. An animal obviously has an equal need not to be tortured as a human does. If you can't understand this you're too stupid for words.
So would you consider it moral to kill humans who have the mental capabilities of animals provided the killing was done in a manner that was quick and relatively painless?
Death isn't the problem in this world, suffering is. I already explicitly said that I see no ethical problem with you painlessly killing me, so why would I have a problem with you killing retards?
The harm is that a dead person can do none of those things. The fact that they are not around to realize it is irrelevant, you have deprived them of life and everything they could have enjoyed by living it.
Oh no, the gazillion potential people that could have existed but now don't because the sperm never met the egg are never going to watch a sunset, it's so sad. I'm sure you've shed like a thousand tears for all those people, right? Or maybe you understand that nonexistent people can't be deprived so the fact they aren't experiencing shit really isn't a bad thing.
I would also consider it immoral (and strange) to go around taking out people appendixes without their permission even if you could do so with a guarantee that they would feel no pain. It is also immoral to rape someone in a coma even though they will never even know it happened.
Ok, so if I remove two atoms from your toenail without you ever knowing about it am I being a massive asshole?
It is a great way to determine how we should treat each other. If something is important to someone else it is harmful to destroy it even if the item has no importance to you. I would consider it wrong to walk into someones house and tear up their bible even though a bible has literally zero value to me. It is the value to the person being harmed that matters, not value to me.
Well yeah, if the question only affects that one person. You don't go around asking retards how to do stuff like building a nuclear power plant though. The point of ethics is figuring out what the best way to play the game is for all the players involved, and usually that means not listening to the idiots. Kinda like how the few billion assholes like you that want to torture billions upon billions of animals for no great need whatsoever shouldn't really be taken seriously.
So it is not immoral to blow up someones house as long as they are in it and they die but it is immoral if they are not in the house and survive?
How many times do I have to say there's nothing bad about dying? Please argue the points instead of asking the same question again in different form seven times.
- Login to post comments
Offline Ok, so if I remove two atoms from your toenail without you ever knowing about it am I being a massive asshole?
No, but you may be schizophrenic.
Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality.
Tony de Mello
- Login to post comments
First of all, there is no free will, so that's an utterly useless excuse for anything.
Those occurences aren't evil but they are still bad and must therefore be included in assessing our circumstance. It really doesn't matter much to me whether my leg is broken by a falling tree or someone smashing it with a hammer. The reason we condemn evil afterall is not the intent, but the (potential) result. If humans could only think evil thoughts but never act upon them, evil would be nothing to fear.
Harming other sentient species is evil as well.
Due to the facts of the natural world you can't not create victims. The lion can't help the fact it must kill to live. If it doesn't kill then it becomes the victim.
Oh the horror, no more factory farming and concentration camps.
There's suffering because everything was "designed" by natural forces with no appreciation for the welfare of the critters they produced. Unfortunately suffering confers an evolutionary advantage so it survived natural selection.
Only if you value survival over welfare. Which you don't, unless you really think everyone burning in hell for all eternity beats nonexistence.
Talking about a baby's moral comprehension is less meaningful than talking about that of a cow's.
to pin down. What does evil mean? Is it relative? Is morality as a concept amoral or is it fixed as a universal law? Different religions can't agree. The christians argue evil is anything that goes against the nature of god, leaving things wide open for interpretation. What is the nature of god? Is it conceptually relative? Is it even knowable in any small way?
Muslims argue that evil is not doing everything allah tells you to do whether or not this makes sense to you. But muslims depend on interpretations from mullahs in order to pick their way through the vagaries of their doctrine. Islam as a doctrine is not moral. It's aggressive, competitive and threatening. And there's no point getting into the attitudes of different muslim sects to each other. Opposing sects are considered devil's spawn for no clear moral reason.
Regardless, I think behaving in ways that harm others is inevitable for humans given we compete for finite resources in an increasingly crowded landscape. We've also conceptualised our best possible behaviours - those behaviours incorporating the biggest sacrifices we make on behalf of our in-group of families and close friends - as being the pinnacle of human behaviour and we are silly enough to have allowed religions to insist it's possible we can extend these sacrificial in-group behaviours to all the people of the world.
Personally, I think the majority of people are barely evil. In fact, I doubt they could even be considered unpleasant most of the time. Thoughtless, self absorbed, sure. But often we are bizarrely giving and caring, ever ready to incorporate strangers into the in-group world of our strong emotions. Buried miners, lost children, astronauts, the families of the victims of tragedy. Strangers on 'planes who share a moment of our lives.
When I think of this ad hominem fallacy of original sin and intrinsic human evil I always think of that weak fuck Ray Comfort lambasting a grown woman in Los Angeles with a succession of false dichotomies until she has a brain snap and gives him a massive serve. You are evil says he. No, says she. Have you ever lied? Yes. Then you are evil. No I'm not evil. Have you ever stolen anything? Yes. Then you are evil. No, I'm not evil. Have you had sex out of wedlock? Yes. Then you are evil....
This funny bastard accuses God of being evil...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btg8CMxLtE0
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Sure competition is not neccesarry but it once was and people will have to move beyond it. And no I wouldn't like to live infinitely, but I am glad to get some time in this beautiful life. If that makes me christian like so be it.
They both work the same way. You would know that if you think on it just a bit.
You do have free will child. I even have a little test that you can take to prove it to yourself.
P M me if you care to prove it for yourself.
I do not mean free will to fly if you are going to be silly about it.
Just free will thin the bounds of nature and physics.
Regards
DL
Atheistextremist
I agree that people have way more good than evil in them.
They still all do evil and must to survive.
Regards
DL
What would hapen in the wild if competition stoped?
Can our evolution continue without both cooperation and competition?
How would man improve if he did not compete. How would he live if he did not compete for resources with other animals?
Regards
DL
Cool, give me the test.
they all behave in ways that impinge on other people and other living organisms but as for whether this could be called evil - as in expressly against the wishes of a god - is another question entirely. I've read no coherent definition of the word 'evil'. It seems entirely relative to context notwithstanding the fact humans share similar feelings about harming other humans, feelings generally not extended to any other life forms. I agree it's not possible for humans to live in social environments without imposing on other humans in some way or another. Personally, I think most the 'good' human behaviours are exercises in favour trading and are inherently selfish. We protect and sacrifice on behalf of our own genes. We look after those who look after us and we avoid those who cheat us by not returning favours. This seems to be the way of things in human society.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Why are you as an atheist accepting that definition of evil? I agree it's kind of a loaded word so I prefer unethical but if I have to use the word evil I mean it as merely a synonym for unethical.
Not extending appropriate ethical consideration to other species is NO different from racism, sexism etc. We don't think stabbing another person is wrong because they look like us, we think so because we know it really fucking hurts. With a modern understanding of biology we know animals are built no differently than us and can therefore deduce that a stabbed animal feels just as much pain as a human, therefore making you just as big an asshole for doing it. The only reason people don't accept this glaringly obvious fact is they've been raised in a culture where abusing animals is an everyday part of how they derive their pleasure and therefore rationalize all this shit away so they don't have to sacrifice anything.
I think there's no such thing as a truly selfless action in the way people usually understand that word. The reason we do things we consider right is because it makes US feel good and vice versa. Selfish and selfless are still useful words for describing behaviour though, the motivation isn't really all that important.
With regard to hatred and resulting evil acts you’re saying it’s just human nature (co-operation/competiton) aren’t you, as God isn’t culpable (Christian view), free will doesn’t help as we’re already fallen and as long as we have no intention.
That can’t be right in my book as we all have the opportunity to do bad things but most of us don’t so what do you think is the reason for that?
Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality.
Tony de Mello
Done. Check your P M.
Regards
DL
No argument and you notice we did not have to define evil.
My short definition is anything I do not like.
Regards
DL
So you believe evil is completely subjective?
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
I think we base what we do on our desire to survive.
Note that that baby instinctively chooses to cooperate as that is the best survival strategy.
And yes, I do not think that a God or free will has much to do with it.
If you are competing for a job for instance. Will you care if the loser of that competition loses?
Yes you do but that will not stop you from doing what you must to survive and if your competition happens to be the last in a long string for him then you may know that your winning will cause him to perhaps starve to death but if you are hungry as well and have a family to feed, you will ignore it and go for the win. Right?
Regards
DL
I think that for most there are universal standards. Like this clip shows.
http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/17/the_real_differ/
Evil though cannot be said to be universal.
Take pain for instance. If you talk to someone into S & M, he will likely not agree with most that pain is evil and in that sense, evil is subjective.
Regards
DL
Well if you broaden the definition of evil that much obviously everyone does it. If I am using the term "evil" to describe someone or something, it is far more narrow. If I am describing a person as evil I am intending to convey that I believe that person regularly causes significant harm or pain for the sake of causing significant harm or pain and probably even enjoys causing harm or pain. By that definition, relatively few people are ever evil.
When you broaden definitions so much it gets to the point that the word itself means nothing. For example, knowing your definition if you told me "John is evil" it means nothing, I don't know if John is a serial killer or simply someone who is a little selfish and might hog the chicken wings when we share an appetizer. If he is a serial killer I don't want to be hanging around him, if he is going to hog the wings I'll just make sure we get separate orders. On the other hand, if I tell you "John is evil" you don't want to be around him without being armed, trust me.
Since evil is perhaps the most powerful adjective to convey how bad someone/something is, I think it is a huge disservice to your own ability to communicate with others to use it cavalierly.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Perhaps but none the less, we all have our own standards of what that word means.
I put a good example to show this above with my S & M example.
To them, your "If I am describing a person as evil I am intending to convey that I believe that person regularly causes significant harm or pain for the sake of causing significant harm or pain and probably even enjoys causing harm or pain." they would see as a good friend.
Regards
DL
I will admit to being a speciesist. It is beneficial for us to cooperate with other humans and to "get along" more or less. Regarding other humans as equal to us and operating in a system that allows us to trade for mutual benefit while attempting to limit how much we harm each other is better for most of us in the long term. With other humans we can negotiate, trade and resolve disputes through communication.
With animals, there is no such situation. You can't sit down with a deer and explain that it has to wait for the road to be clear before running across. You can't explain to a mouse that stealing your crackers is wrong or come to an agreement, "I won't steal from you and you won't steal from me". You will never trade with an animal, animals will never live under human laws and animals will never organize into an army unless some species develops human-like intelligence in the distant future. As such, it is absurd to give animals the moral equivalence you give other humans. So I don't feel the least bit guilty that when I kill an animal. Of course, I also do not believe that I would feel guilty over killing a human who is unwilling live within our society of laws (unless the laws of society were so oppressive that I am unwilling to live in it, in which case I would feel no guilt at killing those attempting to impose the oppressive laws).
Agreed. I am extremely suspicious of anyone who claims to be doing anything selfless.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Yes the S&M person has a different perspective, but I do not think pain is evil anyways. Like many unpleasant things, it serves an important purpose. It is not evil because it is similair to natural disasters in that it has no intent and pain specifically is not inherently harmful to people. Quite the opposite.
Something like Rape, can be demonstratably shown to be 'evil'. It harms everyone involved and then some. Would you agree?
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
The masochist says, "Hurt me!" The sadist says, "No."
Very old joke.
Evil is deliberately hurting someone else for no reason other than to cause pain. This means most sadists are evil. By my definition.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Slip of the tongue. I meant not as neccesary. As in you most likely won't die if you lose competitions as compared to the ancient days.
I chose my words pretty carefully there and they weren't moral equivalence. I said appropriate ethical consideration. No sane animal rights person is advocating we hand out driver's licenses to gorillas. What we are saying is that animals should be treated equally in matters where there exists actual equality, most importantly the capacity to suffer. All that stuff you said about not being able to negotiate with animals also applies to retards, yet you wouldn't stick retards into factory farm like conditions for your petty conveniences. THAT is what speciecism is about; favoring your own species in circumstances where species is irrelevant. If you wanna admit to being a speciecist under that definition then you're being just as unethical as a sexist or racist. I should also point out that your examples were about wild animals for whom we are not responsible. We are however fully responsible for the breeding of farm animals.
To compare to sexism for example, it's not sexist to pick a random male over a random female if you need some heavy lifting done, as the average male is stronger. It is sexist not to give women the right to vote as there is no evidence they're less able to make those decisions rationally.
It's not speciecist not to let the gorilla drive, it is speciecist to raise animals in torture chambers where they suffer as much as a human in the same conditions would, and all for the grand fucking purpose of getting people a nicer tasting sandwich.
Nor should you. What you should feel guilty about is supporting the creation of animals to be raised in horrific conditions by subsidizing the animal product industry. If you wanna go out into the woods and shoot some deer, have at it. If you have to first raise those deer in appaling conditions, then you're an asshole.
Something went wrong I'm afraid, my inbox is empty.
Yes, you have defined the cause, you are saying that hatred/evil is caused through poverty or the urge to escape it but what is evil, you haven’t defined what it is other than something you don’t like.
Isn’t hatred more than anything a feeling and surely it’s on a sliding scale, we don’t start off feeling hatred, it starts with irritation, annoyance, then anger/ rage all ‘hot’ feelings that are short lived. But hatred is different because it’s cold and is sustained for long periods perhaps a lifetime as in one group hating another group
Real change will come when it is brought about, not by your ego, but by reality.
Tony de Mello
Absolutely. To rape is to do evil.
I do not agree with your view of pain. If I inflict needless pain to someone, it is definitely evil.
S & M would not agree but that is their twisted view.
I do recognize that pain a non-inflicted pain can have value to indicate to us that there is a problem, like putting one's hand on a stove and getting the pain of burning, and some pains indicate that something is healing but any needlessly inflicted pain is evil.
Regards
DL
Most will agree but to the S & M, they think and accept that they are giving pleasure and not pain or the pleasure is worth the pain.
Evil creates victims and in this case, there is no victim. To their mind that is.
Regards
DL
That would depend on how long your string of loses are.
At the end of the day, we all kill.
Think of heat and air conditioning.
Many die in our cities when it gets too warm or humid.
The older poor who have lost at competitions must suffer and die because those who have won can afford air conditioners and as they use them, they add to the heat and are in fact killing the losers.
Regards
DL
Ok. Let's do it here.
Let me give the logic trail.
If you have something, anything, including a free will, then you can give it up.
If you do not have a free will then you cannot.
All one needs do then to prove one has a free will is to give it up to another's will.
My will asks that you give up yours in how you respond in your next reply here.
Begin your reply with a "Y" please and you will see that you have a free will to give up to my request.
Regards
DL
I consider nothing evil about S&M. The goal of S&M is not to cause pain but to seek pleasure which sometimes comes through pain. As long as all participants are willing, it is not evil and if I told you "John is evil" I would not be implying that John is a master in a S&M relationship. Given your obvious disdain for the S&M lifestyle, I suggest you try it before you judge the people who participate in it as evil.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Evil is subjective, as my S & M example shows so I cannot define evil in a way that all would agree on.
Chances are good that if you give your definition of evil, I will likely agree with it. I need not define what you already know from your own POV. To list each and every evil would take a book. That is not the purpose of the O P. It is to show that we must all do evil or die.
Regards
DL
Read above. I did not say S & M were evil from their POV.
I said most would see inflicted pain as evil but not an S & M.
If there is no victim created then there is no evil FMPOV.
They can flog each other all they want and I would not object if it is a voluntary and consented to activity.
At the same time, if one of them kills the other, then I would jail him for sure because we now have a victim who did not consent to die. If he did consent, then I would not jail the killer.
Have you seen, They Kill Horses don't they?
I would let the killer go free. Would you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAiWwjHvid0
Regards
DL
If retards had tasty babyback ribs I might consider it. Although, on a more serious note, I also wouldn't put snakes in a factory farm. Why? Because they are not nearly as tasty. Factory farms serve the purpose of providing large amounts of food to a large population. Putting animals in a factory farm just because would be strange and perhaps immoral.
I agree that factory farms are not ideal conditions, however, they are necessary to provide enough meat to our species and providing for our species is more important than being nice to other species.
In factory farm circumstances species is not irrelevant. Pigs are tasty, dogs not so much, so we raise pigs in factory farms because to provide enough of them to feed our population.
Either way the animal dies quite brutally in a way I would consider immoral to kill a completely innocent human. I find the distinction you are trying to draw here rather arbitrary. If a person killed a human who just happened to be walking through the woods and has done nothing to them I would consider them an asshole and I assume you would as well. So why isn't the hunter who kills a random deer in the woods an asshole? I don't see how you can argue against factory farms on the basis that it would be immoral to raise humans in similar conditions, while not condemning the person who kills an animal in a hunting situation. Seems like you are trying to have it both ways. Either it is wrong to kill an animal for the purposes of eating or it isn't.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X