You make a fine point. I only wish we could be curious AND remove moral judgement about it all (so much of the gender classification talk falls into this trap it seems). Me? I'm more fascinated by how this guy thinks he's found the perfect mate....she/he could be a dolphin for all I care. I don't think I'm completely alone in that more singular fascination...it just somehow seems to be perverted by questions that don't really have any relevance to the subjects of such matters...the anatomy of his chosen partner is largely moot...to him it seems and to me. I was expressing a desire for it to become so for everyone else.

>> ^dag:

Unless we rewire our brains at a limbic level - I don't think we'll ever stop thinking and talking about this stuff - because it involves sexuality. That's what we're here for. We've evolved to find sex endlessly fascinating.>> ^bigbikeman:
shrug . Can't wait til nobody feels the need to figure it out. We're well past the point where prolific and abundant reproduction is a necessary part of our survival as a species...and....we have other problems.
They're happy with each other. Unless you want to drag some kind of puritanical/biblical morals into it, that's pretty much a wrap imho.

Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).


No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??

This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.

Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.

Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.

But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-


Well, that escalated quickly

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.

I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.

It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

>> ^Boise_Lib:

Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.


Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.

As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

@shinyblurry

The facts are simple: the existence of God explains everything that you feel about wanting to do good, and the love that you have for people and life, and your atheism denies it. Yet you embrace what is contrary to your own experience.

AND from farther down

… your atheistic presuppositions about reality. You say no one has come back but one man has, but of course you dismiss the account as fantasy (again because of your atheistic presuppositions).

Those aren't facts though. Those are your opinions and conjectures. Your theory of God may explain a greater number of things around me than science, but it also raises more questions than it answers, which makes it a horrible theory. "My atheism" doesn't exist as a concept. I don't subscribe to any belief about Gods any more than a monkey does. Are monkeys atheistic? I'm like a monkey. I have no "-ism" that "denies" anything. I happen to lack belief in any supernatural deity. *This lack of belief defines my atheism, rather than atheism defining my lack of beliefs.* I can't believe you still don't understand my position (or lack thereof). I have no idea what you mean by embrace. Nothing about my experience with "meaningfulness" requires me to believe in any gods, particularly not Yahweh.

So if it makes you feel good its okay to be a slave? You don't mind being enslaved to a mindless irrational process because you get rewarded for it like a rat activating a feeder?

Chemicals in my brain cause me to feel hunger and crave food. I follow them because doing so makes me feel good. I don't consider myself weak for being driven by those chemicals in my brain. To really feel like a slave, I'd have to be compelled to follow the commands of a sentient being, like a plantation owner with a whip, or a god of love threatening me with eternal torture, for instance, not chemicals in my own brain. Can there be shame in being a slave to yourself?

So I will modify this and say that you're living like a theist does but denying it with your atheism.

You changed one word, but missed the point of mine, so I've changed the same word: So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians *theists* who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

Now what?

Therefore what you're talking about is a herd morality.

Yep. Pretty much.

The entire point of my example was to show that if we simply have a herd morality where the majority tells us what is good and evil, then if the majority ever said child rape is good it would be.

If your whole final end goal is to prove your child rape hypothetical is internally consistent, and not to extend it into the real world, then yep, that's logically quite true. However, if you want to use it make any point about proving my beliefs to be somehow wrong, then you'll have to give me reason to believe it could ever possibly happen in a sustainable way.

My point was that we all come pre-programmed with a need for worship, which you apparently agree with. That is what is natural to us … It is actually more natural for us to rebel against God because of our corrupt nature.

Are we programmed to worship, or to rebel against God? Which is it? I propose that we're genetically designed to do exactly what makes us happy. Being good to others makes us (non-psychos) happy. Worship also makes many of us happy. Cognitive dissonance does not. I don't believe in any god, so I can't possibly worship one with a straight face. That would be cognitively dissonant and make me unhappy. I see no need to introduce the concept of "corruption".

The sense we agreed upon and have been discussing is that that life without God is meaningless … Therefore the meaning you derive from your feelings is only an illusion created by chemical reactions in your brain.

All cognition, from self-awareness, to thought, to the senses, to desires, to emotions, to numinous experiences, all of it is 100% chemical reactions. It's only fair to call my conscience an "illusion" if I also consider everything else that I perceive to be an illusion created by the chemicals in my mind. My feelings are as subjectively real as my senses.

There are other causes of depression but you see my point. Hope is the solution to depression.

That can be true. It's human nature to want to worship, and worshipping something can give hope. So for some people, if they can convince themselves to believe it, worshipping a god can lift them out of depression.

On what basis do you say your belief is more likely?

Occam's razor.

You say there is no reason to speculate (ever); now that is an interesting statement from someone who believes in open inquiry. What you've said is actually the death of inquiry. And let's be clear about this; you have speculated.

If there's no way to establish the truth of something, then there's no sense in trying to do so. There are no reliable records of the afterlife, so hoping to reach a conclusion is a vain pursuit. You can imagine hypotheticals, but you can't give any rationale for preferring one over another. Except by Occam's razor. What you consider "speculation" is just me saying, "nothing disproves anything about the afterlife".

Of course anything is possible when you summon your magic genie of evolution. "Time itself performs the miracles for you."

It's scientific fact, not mine, not anyone's. It's yours too, if you want it. You just have to go and learn about it from an unbiased source, not from uninformed people with pre-conceived ideas about what it is and isn't.

So no one is really bad?

In the relative non-objective morality sense, no, nobody is inherently bad or "evil" apart from our judgement of their actions. We often call people "bad", but that's just shorthand for what I said, or for having difficulty accepting that another person can do something so contrary to our concept of good.

Well, I'm fairly sure you've told me before that you hate the idea of God telling you what to do.

True, I would resent anybody giving me free will, then giving me a choice of doing what they say or accepting the worst conceivable torture for eternity. Did I misunderstand something?

[me:]Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

[you:]I've covered this above, but I will also add that if we had evolved differently, then in your worldview, all of this would be moot. We are only in this particular configuration because of circumstance, and not design. It could just as easily be 1000 different other ways. There could easily be scenarios where we evolved to exploit children instead of nuture them.

For a species to evolve to exploit children rather than nurture them is nearly impossible. That gene would get weeded out of the gene pool very quickly. Maybe I'm missing your point, and what you're really trying to say is that according to me, human feelings about right and wrong are, at their essence, random, because humans could have developed different feelings about right and wrong. I agree.

Back to my question: Does the Bible say that rape is wrong? Does it say that you cannot marry a child? To save time, could you point me to a neat summary of all the biblical rules that still stand? The Commandments were given in the Old Testament. I thought that law was struck down and there was a new covenant now, no? No sex before marriage is one, I'm assuming. Do you have to attend mass on Sundays? What are the others? I'm surprised to hear that you don't think the Bible suggests any position on condom usage. Is that just a Catholic hang-up then?

[me:]In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules.

[you:]Romans 13:9-10

I agree that the rules in that verse are clearly derived from "love your neighbour", except maybe coveting, but that's not the point. Once I see the summary of biblical edicts, I'm sure I'll be able to point out that "Love your neighbour" isn't enough, that there are rules you would only follow because they're stated in the Bible, not because they obviously flow from the concept of neighbourly love.

So, when we think about doing unto others, we would think about it in the context of how Jesus taught us to behave.

So you're saying that we have to adjust our conscience first to align with the Bible, and then follow it. I'm saying we can just follow it according to what is bad for people.

abortion statistics

Good point. Foetal rights/women's rights is the moral debate of our times, IMO, maybe of all history. I haven't found any solid position on that issue. I've thought a lot about it, but this isn't the place to debate it. Suffice it to say I don't see abortion as a good thing, but not equal to infanticide either.

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

Yes, I think an entire society could end up agreeing on something that depraved, just like the ancient Greek society approved of paedophilia.

You know Germans were 94% Christian during WWII, right? And that the Greeks had those relations consensually? I'm against legalizing sex with children because it would be abused and children would be victimized, not because I think it's impossible for a child to enjoy and benefit from sex. I did it when I was underage and it was nothing but good.

You also act as if I am trying to defend all religion, which I'm not.

The thing is, you regularly invoke the 85% of humans who are theist when having a large number bolsters your argument, yet you disassociate yourself from most of them when their behaviour weakens your argument. I can never tell who you're talking about. Clearly identify the people you're talking about at all times, and we won't have this problem.

In any case, there are many examples of non-believing societies doing sick and depraved things to their populations.

And many Christian societies too, but I'm sure you'll disassociate yourselves from *those* Christians.

Tortured for Christ

According to Jesus, the Romanian government was appointed by God, so those Christians must have been doing something wrong, perhaps rebelling:

Romans 13:1-5

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.

That passage, BTW, makes my stomach turn for all the people (Christian or otherwise) who have been tortured and killed at the hands of immoral rulers. And Jesus says might makes right. Go Jesus go. Prick.

[you:]… logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature …

[me:]You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

[you:]Now you're just trying to duck the issue, and perhaps you don't understand what solipsism is, because this is not solipsism. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind is sure to exist.

What I am talking about is right in line with the video. Without God you don't have any ultimate justification not just for any kind of value, but even for your own reasoning. It is a direct implication of a meaningless existence. This is what I mean about a justifies b justifies c justifies d into infinity. You have nowhere to stake a claim which can justify anything which you experience, or even your own rationality. If you feel you do, please demonstrate why you believe your reasoning is actually valid.

Then you've entirely missed the point of me making those rules back at Qualiasoup v. Craig.

We agreed not to question the validity of our senses. If I can trust my senses, then I am self-aware. I must assume I'm a rational agent, since it was my own rational awareness that defined my self. If I'm a rational agent, then I can trust logic, which Craig tells us in the same video is a rational thing to do.

If your whole argument is, "a god must exist for you to be able to use logic" then I put it to you to show me logically (and not tautologically) why that must be true. To me, there's no connection.

I still don't see the infinite regression. Give me a real example of it in the form a justifies b which justifies c....

Also, what's "uniformity in nature" and when do I ever appeal to it?

Before any quotes, I'll give my own overarching point: Life without a higher purpose may be ultimately meaningless (I'll get more into what sense I mean), and that makes life more difficult than if there were ultimate meaning, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth value of the existence of Yahweh. You cannot derive Yahweh's existence (or any deity or pantheon) from your claim that life is easier that way. [Edit: Turns out I never actually get to that conclusion in my comments below, so you might as well address it here, but after you've read the rest.]

The point was never that a meaningless Universe makes life more difficult; you simply decided that was the point. The point the video makes, and which I have also been making, is that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance by having no ultimate justification for your value system, but living as if you do. You admit that under atheism the Universe is meaningless, and so we've been debating on whether you can find any justification for a value system in a meaningless Universe. The explanation you have ultimately given me is that you believe there is a right and wrong, and people do have value, because you feel it. Do you realize this proves what I have been saying all along?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the term used in modern psychology to describe the state of holding two or more conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously.

Your atheism tells you that life without God is meaningless. Your feelings tell you that life is meaningful. These are two conflicting cognitions. Instead of realizing that and re-evaluating your atheism, you say that you don't know why and you don't care. That is the very definition of cognitive dissonance.

But the fact is that somehow, in the context of my own little 80-year microblip in the lifespan of our planet, I do care. I just do. I have nothing more than a pet theory about why I care. I care, and I care a lot. I suppose I'm somewhat curious as to why I care, but it's not of primary importance for me to know. I just do, and it's pleasing to notice that just about everyone else around me does too. The only question for me is how to follow this desire of mine to be good given my circumstances.

The facts are simple: the existence of God explains everything that you feel about wanting to do good, and the love that you have for people and life, and your atheism denies it. Yet you embrace what is contrary to your own experience.

And why should I reject being a slave to chemicals? The chemicals MAKE ME FEEL GOOD, remember? Should I purposefully do things that make me feel bad? Why on Earth would I even consider it? Ridiculous.

So if it makes you feel good its okay to be a slave? You don't mind being enslaved to a mindless irrational process because you get rewarded for it like a rat activating a feeder?

I reject the description that I live my life "as a Christian does", as if Christians invented or have some original claim being good. All humans, regardless of faith or lack thereof, believe in the value of humans (or, any societies that don't value humans go extinct very quickly). We all generally shun murder and violence, foster mutual care, enjoy one another's company, feel protective, have a soft spot for babies and so forth, and have been doing all of this as a species since before Christianity began.

So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

Most people in this world (around 85 - 90 percent) are theists. If we are going to talk about universal belief in this world then it is theism which is normal. That is historically where our morality comes from. Everyone who believes in God has an ultimate justification for right and wrong, but atheists do not. So I will modify this and say that you're living like a theist does but denying it with your atheism.

I can claim that I have a stronger sense of what's right and wrong than the psychopath simply because they are defined as lacking that sense (or, perhaps non-psychopaths are defined as people having that sense). And you're right that I do not claim that my way of determining which actions are appropriate is inherently superior to the psychopath's. As it happens, my way of determining morality puts me among the overwhelming majority, and so it's relatively easy for me to mitigate the negative impacts of people like that by identifying and avoiding them. I don't say that my way should be preferred to the pshychopath's; I just notice that it is, and I'm grateful for that, and for the fact that psychopathy is not a choice.

Actually, psychopaths do know right from wrong, but they don't care.

In any case, what you're saying here contradicts your later claim that my hypothetical about a society approving of child rape is ridiculous, and proves my point. You admit here that you couldn't say that your way of morality is superior to psychopathy, it just so happens that there are more of you than there are of them. You name that as the reason why your way should be preferred. Therefore what you're talking about is a herd morality.

Now think about if the situation were reversed and psychopaths were in the majority. Your version of morality would no longer be preferred, and psychopaths would no longer need to conform to your standards; you would need to conform to theirs. Whatever was normalized in a psychopathic society would be what was called good and whatever the psychopathic society rejected would be called evil. This is proof that everything I said was true. The entire point of my example was to show that if we simply have a herd morality where the majority tells us what is good and evil, then if the majority ever said child rape is good it would be. This is simply a fact. Whether you think it could happen or not is relevent to the point.

You're drowning in a sea of relativism, where a justifies b and b justifies c and c justifies d, and this goes into an infinite regress.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you give an example of a justification to infinite regression that would cause some kind of problem unique to non-thesitic morality?

I'll get to this later.

I don't accept that it's any more natural to worship Yahweh than some other deity or pantheon or idol, and I can't imagine how you could justify such a position without referring to dogma. Ask a Muslim. He'll tell you with the same conviction that Allah is the natural way and show you his own dogma. 100 years ago, a Japanese would have told you it was natural to worship the Emperor, and today he'd say it's natural to worship ancestors. My point is that any worship will satisfy our natural urge to worship, which is why almost all people worship something, and the object of worship you're brought up around is the one you're most likely to be comfortable with worshipping, naturally.

The reason I said this was in reply to your assertion that we developed religion because it answered questions and made us feel comfortable. My point was that we all come pre-programmed with a need for worship, which you apparently agree with. That is what is natural to us. It has nothing to do with whether it is more or less natural to worship Jesus. It is actually more natural for us to rebel against God because of our corrupt nature. It's only through personal revelation that we direct our worship in the right direction.

People don't naturally conclude life is meaningless; they know from their experience that it is very meaningful. They are taught it is meaningless through philosophy and the ennui that comes from modern life. You will never find a population of natural atheists anywhere on the planet.

The problem —and one that I fell into myself— is the conflation of two senses of the word "meaningless". For example, I can say without conflict that the planet and humanity is doomed and so forth, so our actions are ultimately meaningless, AND that interacting with people gives meaning to my life. Now, in the first sense, I mean there's no teleological purpose to my life. In the second sense, I mean certain people and things in my life give fulfillment/bliss.

The sense we agreed upon and have been discussing is that that life without God is meaningless. In this sense, it is still equally meaningless whether human civilization implodes or doesn't implode. Therefore the meaning you derive from your feelings is only an illusion created by chemical reactions in your brain.

Your anecdotal evidence about depression doesn't make you an authority on *the single cause* of depression. Some depressives follow your pattern, and others don't. I don't. When I'm depressed, my feeling isn't hopelessness. In fact, these days, I'm feeling rather hopeless, but I'm not depressed.

You can feel hopeless and not be depressed, but the source of the depression is almost always hopelessness. I'll give you some examples. If you put all of the worlds depressed people in a very large room, and gave each of them a check for 10 million dollars, you will have instantly cured around 80 percent of them. The majority of depression comes being stuck in a bad situation that you don't feel like you can change, situations that cause a lot of stress and unhappiness. A lot of money buys a lot of change. Many of the rest are probably depressed because of health issues, and if you could offer them a cure (hope), they would be cured as well. The remainder are probably depressed because of extreme neurosis. There are other causes of depression but you see my point. Hope is the solution to depression.

It's not my hope. I believe that dead is dead. Much simpler than your belief. Much more likely too. You're implying that I'm following some faulty reasoning about the afterlife. Among the things I don't know are an *infinite number of possibilities* of what could happen in the afterlife, one of which is your bible story. My best guess is nothing. Since nobody's ever come back from the dead to talk about it (Did nobody interview Lazarus? What a great opportunity missed!), nobody knows, so there's no reason to speculate about it ever. Your book says whatever it says, and I don't care because to me it's fairy tales. I'd have to be an idiot to live my life differently because of a book I didn't first believe in. Just like you'd be an idiot to live like a non-believer if you believe so much in Yahweh.

On what basis do you say your belief is more likely?

Someone has come back from the dead to talk about it: Jesus Christ. You don't have to believe the bible; you can ask Him yourself. You say there is no reason to speculate (ever); now that is an interesting statement from someone who believes in open inquiry. What you've said is actually the death of inquiry. And let's be clear about this; you have speculated. You are basing your conclusion on no evidence but merely your atheistic presuppositions about reality. You say no one has come back but one man has, but of course you dismiss the account as fantasy (again because of your atheistic presuppositions).

I would also ask how you think the brain understands the complex moral scenarios we find ourselves in and rewards or doesn't reward accordingly? Doesn't that seem fairly implausible to you?

It's quite plausible. I'm no biologist, but I'm sure there's a branch of evolutionary biology that deals with social feelings. My own pet theory is that these feelings are comparable to the ones that control the behaviour of all communal forms of life, like ants and zebras and red-winged blackbirds. It's evolution, either way, IMO.

Of course anything is possible when you summon your magic genie of evolution. "Time itself performs the miracles for you."

What makes someone a bad person?

In the absolute sense, religious faith, only, can bring that kind of judgement as a meaningful label.

In the relative sense where I would colloquially refer to someone as "a bad person" (my prime minister, Stephen Harper is an example), I mean someone who has shown they are sufficiently disruptive to other people's happiness due to acting too much in their own self-interest that they're best removed from influence and then avoided. But I would only use that term as a shorthand among people who knew that I don't moralize absolutely.

So no one is really bad?

Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the bible says you should do things you don't want to do, or that you should stop doing things you don't want to stop doing?

An interesting question, but no. I don't believe it because everything I see points all religion being a human invention.

Well, I'm fairly sure you've told me before that you hate the idea of God telling you what to do.

Your hypothetical is an appeal to the ridiculous. It simply is a fact that just about everyone —including child rapists, I'm guessing— believes that child rape is wrong for the simple reason that it severely hurts children. If it increases a person's suffering, then it's wrong. I can think of nothing simpler. Your hypothetical is like one where a passage in the bible prescribed child rape. Would it be OK then? Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

I've covered this above, but I will also add that if we had evolved differently, then in your worldview, all of this would be moot. We are only in this particular configuration because of circumstance, and not design. It could just as easily be 1000 different other ways. There could easily be scenarios where we evolved to exploit children instead of nuture them.

In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules. I showed that was wrong with my AIDS in Africa example (condoms saving lives). You can address that, or you can agree that Yahweh's laws are more complex that Harris' model of secular morality.

I hope I don't need to point out that the bible says nothing about condoms. Gods morality is really as simple as the two greatest commandments because if you follow those you will follow all the rest:

Romans 13:9-10

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

When you love your neighbor and love God you are basically doing the whole law right there. There are some particulars that can emerge in different situations just like we have laws for different situations, and so Harris would have to accommodate those as well.

2) I also pointed out that Jesus gave us a moral model that requires the individual to determine for themselves based on fixed criteria what's good and what's not. "… as you would have your neighbour do unto you…" implicitly requires the individual to compare their actions with what they themselves would want someone else to do to them. That means relying on their own understanding. This contradicts your other statements that we shouldn't rely on our own understanding. You see? To follow Jesus' second law, you must rely on your own understanding.

Yes, in this case we would rely on our own understanding, as informed by the biblical worldview. What scripture is saying when it says "lean not on your own understanding" is that we make God the Lord of our reasoning. So, when we think about doing unto others, we would think about it in the context of how Jesus taught us to behave.

[you:]What about all of Pagan societies throughout the ages that sacrificed their children to demons?

You're making my point for me. Paganism is religion. Non-believers would never justify a habit of killing their own children.

Yes they would:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

[me:]If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

Yes, I think an entire society could end up agreeing on something that depraved, just like the ancient Greek society approved of paedophilia. You also act as if I am trying to defend all religion, which I'm not. There are plenty of sick and depraved religions out there, and religions can easily corrupt a culture, like islam has done to the Arab culture.

In any case, there are many examples of non-believing societies doing sick and depraved things to their populations. Millions of Christians were murdered by communists in the 1940's and 50's. I highly recommend you read this book:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gracealoneca.com%2Fsitebuildercontent%2Fsitebu
ilderfiles%2Ftortured_for_christ.pdf&ei=PSNiUIyTCsPqiwLYtYGQCw&usg=AFQjCNG-ro4rM7dfvFCkgIvjnmgdhQnSPA&cad=rja

The fact is, in a meaningless Universe you simply can't prove anything without God. You actually have no basis for logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature, but you live as if you do. If I ask you how you know your reasoning is valid, you will reply "by using my reasoning".

You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

Now you're just trying to duck the issue, and perhaps you don't understand what solipsism is, because this is not solipsism. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind is sure to exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

What I am talking about is right in line with the video. Without God you don't have any ultimate justification not just for any kind of value, but even for your own reasoning. It is a direct implication of a meaningless existence. This is what I mean about a justifies b justifies c justifies d into infinity. You have nowhere to stake a claim which can justify anything which you experience, or even your own rationality. If you feel you do, please demonstrate why you believe your reasoning is actually valid.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

I've been a fan of the game for some time. I started playing Beta Weekend Event 1 and every BWE after, and any stress test that I could. Since launch I haven't spent as much time on it as I would like, but unlike a certain other MMO it doesn't matter as there is no monthly fee. You can drop it and come back days later without feeling you wasted time playing other games or living life because it is buy to play. With WoW and SWTOR I often felt I had to play at least $15 worth each month to make it worth while. I really don't know why SWTOR is going full Free to Play rather than Buy to Play given the costs to make the game. Most games are going to cost the same amount anyhow, and then you get a game with a huge amount of content for that $60.

The only complaints I've heard were those who wanted endgame raids, those who miss the trinity, and the usual launch woes. (I still can't link my GW1 and GW2 accounts and customer service hasn't fixed it yet, though I've had a ticket open since the early launch for those who pre-purchased the game.)

I like WoW, and keep my free account. Even if they went BtP or FtP, I would still play GW2 more as I think it is just a better game play experience. I liked SWTOR, and while I don't pay the fee anymore (soon to be moot anyhow) I keep the client up to date and still dip in on the free trial on occasion as I do WoW. But for me, I much prefer GW2. I find it near the perfect game experience for me... now I don't watch people play it on Twitch as I do other games like DOTA 2 or some others, but then I don't watch people play any MMO.

I got an i3 and a GTS 450, so a very low powered system, but it plays very well and still manages to look nice. The new beta drivers I installed from nVidia seem to favor over heating the card and shutting the machine down, so I had to turn some detail down to stop that, but the game still looks great.

Now I must level up so I can find that frog juicing quest if it is real...

I found these to be presumptuous. They do happen to some people, maybe even most people, but they don’t happen to all. Many people of no religion, and despite immense tragedies, live happy and fulfilling lives, and feel happy and fulfilled on their death beds. I’d further argue that people with religious faith also get depressed. I suspect you’d counter that anyone who is depressed has insincere faith. That seems tautological to me, but either way, it’s moot, for now.

Well, the central argument of the video is that life without God is meaningless. You've already agreed with that point, so the argument now seems to be is whether someone can be happy and fulfilled with a meaningless life. I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't believers who died happily in ignorance of the truth, but the question is, did they understand that their life was meaningless? I doubt it. It is not something that many people are able to face, and even if they could, they certainly don't live that way. In some way or another, they are deluding themselves and living as if their life does have meaning.

Some people do, at least in part. It’s a lot more complex than just a lack of hope though. For some people it’s due to a tragedy, or overwhelming cognitive dissonance, or it’s simply chemical, and has no correlation with anything in their lives at all. Maybe I’m nitpicking. I just want to make clear that depression is a mental disorder and is not a synonym for, "lack of hope because I don’t have God in my life."

Hope is what keeps people going. Without hope, you are just going through the motions. When you have hope and lose it, it is emotionally devastating. A person without any hope is a person most likely clinically depressed.

You can call depression a kind of mental disorder, and some people may be born without the right chemical receptors for instance, but most people are depressed because of a lack of hope. A person, for instance, who worked their whole life and lost their retirement in an afternoon, or a mom whose kids abandoned her to live in a nursing home. They are not mentally ill, they are simply facing the cold, stark reality of their situation.

Here you slipped into metaphysical talk that means nothing to me, full of judgemental words ("sick and depraved") and terms that I had just told you I don’t accept as objective concepts ("evil"). You also know that I don’t think there’s any hope in your Yahweh God since he’s a mythological character, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

The point being, that if there is no God then no one is in the drivers seat here on planet Earth. I would be surprised if the extreme fragility of our civilization escaped you. If you look at history, and you contrast it to what is going on today, you will find that the new is simply the old in different packaging. We're watching the exact same game show, simply on a grander and more dangerous scale. Humanity has never been closer to utterly destroying itself anytime in its history than it is today. I'm sure, like everything else in creation, you will attribute that to dumb luck. However, if you think everything is a numbers game, then sooner or later the odds say that cooler heads will not prevail and there will be a civilization annihilating calamity. The truth is, it is only the sovereign hand of God that is restraining this from happening.

The reason I made that comment about God is because of your comment about your depression. The reason you have that feeling that if you believed in God you wouldn't be depressed is because you know there is hope in God.

(Also, not that it’s critical to the discussion, but I’d like a reference for your poll about young people not knowing who Hitler was.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/29/half-german-teens-dont-know-hitler-dictator_n_163659 3.html

Now, about "bliss". I didn’t define what I meant by that, so you didn’t understand it. I’ll make up for that now. By “bliss”, I don’t mean immediate pleasure, or instant gratification, or fulfillment of a goal, or basically anything you mentioned. I do mean a great powerful feeling of being centred, being in tune, achieving self-fulfillment, overflowing joy, love, inner peace, elation, connection, lightness, "harmony", "rapture" or a feeling that many describe as "doing what I was born to do/meant to be doing" or "transcendent". It’s the kind of happy that boosts your immune system and makes people around you feel good about themselves as well. (The words in quotes aren’t words I tend to use myself—I’m employing them to help clarify the concept I’m talking about.)

If you understand now what I mean by "bliss" (as opposed to instant gratification, etc.), you’ll understand that people don’t follow their bliss and rape people, nor find inner peace by beating their wives, and so there’s no need to append any rules about not hurting. I can’t imagine how anybody’s bliss could ever include causing harm to other people, but I’ll even address that hypothetical, towards the end of this comment.

Thanks for the elaboration. I am familiar with the philosophy of Sam Harris, and I figured you were borrowing from him, but it is good to know where you stand. My original point, however, still stands. You say you can't imagine someone finding bliss in hurting people. Well, have you ever heard of psychopaths? They do indeed find their bliss in acquiring power and control and making other people miserable, and they feel absolutely no remorse for doing so.

You also say that you feel the best state of a human being is to be blissfully happy. I'm sure everyone will agree with you that feeling blissfully happy is good. However, why should we believe this is actually what good is?. Yes, it feels good to feel good, but this doesn't tell us why we *ought* to do anything. Maybe this is just incredibly selfish and the opposite of good, or somewhere in the middle is true, or maybe none of it. You give no actual reason (beyond arbitrary statements like that which makes the world better or worse) to equate feeling good with moral goodness. In a meaningless Universe, neither is there any basis for thinking that you have any moral duties. This leads me to some questions that you didn't actually address in the last post. Let me ask them again because they are central to this discussion:

In a meaningless Universe there is no actual right and wrong, so why shouldn't you just do whatever you want? Why waste your time trying to navigate some moral landscape that you don't even believe really exists? Why not just take what you can, when you can, before you lose the opportunity?

I'll also address some of your comments:

In all cases, whatever they did, it was because they were feeling bad about something, weren’t centred, and reacted from "lizard brain" instincts of individual survival rather than from human compassion

People do evil because they get carried away by their lusts and become enticed. You view this as some sort of ignorance, or automatic function. Not so. When a person is doing wrong, they are almost always entirely aware of this, but simply override their moral restraints with their desire to fulfill their lusts. People are responsible for the evil that they do, not society, environmental factors, their parents, or anything else.

Divine morality isn’t necessary. Having any collective understanding of what is good and what is bad is enough. For most of humanity’s existence, even up to now, there hasn’t been a clear standard. In patches of geography where there was one, it only applied well to that time and culture. Just as ordinary people supplanted kings and emperors as absolute leaders without society collapsing, and just as ordinary people supplanted religions are sole arbiters of the law without society collapsing, ordinary people can supplant religion as arbiter of what is good and what is bad as well, and society will continue not to collapse.

I've already agreed with you that we all have a God given conscience that tells us right from wrong. Therefore, we don't need to read the bible to know that it is wrong to murder or steal. However, what God has commanded is that we all repent and believe in the gospel. This is something you aren't going to intuitively understand without being told.

And better than a list of what’s good and what’s bad is a system that determines for us what’s good and what’s bad. I’ve seen one model that I like, delivered by Sam Harris. The most salient bit starts at about 10:00 and runs to around 27:30. If you don’t want to watch it now, I’ll summarise the most important ideas: For a moral code to have meaning, it has to apply to some form of consciousness – it cannot apply to rocks and dust. Then there’s the central point which requires you to imagine "the worst possible misery for everyone", and assume that this situation is "bad". "Good" is then defined in terms of moving people away from this "worst possible misery for everyone". That’s it. I recommend hearing it from Harris himself.

I am familiar with his system, to which I reiterate the point; what is the ground for associating moral evil with misery and moral good with "moving people away from misery". Where do you get moral duties in a meaningless Universe?

The three advantages that occur to me of this system over Yahweh’s morality are that it’s a simple system rather than a long intricate list, so it’s quick to teach, easy to absorb, understand and reference, hard to corrupt, and all-inclusive; there’s absolutely nothing random about it, so odd details like not being allowed to wear garments made from two different thread types won’t make it in and there’s nothing objectionable about it from the standpoint of people who just want to do the right thing; and it’s truly universal in that it applies equally well now as it would have in 4000 BC China, in 30 AD Mesopotamia, or will in 12 000 AD Mars, so it’s broadly acceptable too.

The morality that God gives can be summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself. As Jesus told us:

Matthew 22:40

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments

That's a very simple system. When you love God and other people everything else follows naturally.

Every act that is good makes things better for people. If an act makes the world worse, then it’s bad. Simple. Lots of generalities can be derived from it, like killing people is bad, respecting other people’s property is good, and there’d be no arbitrary crap about touching pig skin being bad or extra-marital sex being bad.

On the contrary, it's all arbitrary, because "what makes things better for people" or what "makes the world worse" is something determined by consensus. If everyone in the world agreed that torturing babies for fun made things better for people, it would be good in your view. If your moral system allows for this possibility, I think that's a sign its time to throw it away.

Even more generally, we clearly don’t require any god to tell us what’s good and what isn’t. We already have a conscience inside us that tells us what’s good and what isn’t regardless of laws. I know you believe that Yahweh made our conscience for us. Even if that were so, it doesn’t change the fact that if properly relied upon, a conscience precludes the need for an external set of laws. Any law that echoes what everyone naturally feels already is superfluous. Any law that contributes to human misery is morally wrong and deserves to be disregarded.

If this were true, there would be no need for courts, judges, prisons, or police officers. There are also laws which may make some people miserable but are necessary for the greater good.

You state that without a divine moral standard that exists outside our consciousness, there is no objective justice. This is true by definition. Without a true objective moral code, you further argue that nobody can condemn any action as bad without being hypocritical, so in effect, everything is permissible. This is not the case, however. Although the moral code I advocate isn’t "objective" in the sense that it exists beyond our consciousness, it is universal among humans. And if we’re only attempting to determine moral behaviour for humans, then a universally accepted standard among humans suffices, regardless of where we think it came from.

It doesn't suffice, though. Yes, we can both agree there is a universal morality among human beings. How is that fact supposed to serve as grounds to invent an arbitrary system of good and evil based on people following their bliss and avoiding misery? I could just easily reverse the two and say the existence of universal morality justifies that too. I could say that the existence of a universal morality justifies that we should all love eggplants and hate rutabagas. There is no logical connection here between the system you've created and universal morality.

If there is no objective morality, then nothing is really wrong. Any system you create in the end is a human invention, based on human interpretation, and agreed upon by human consensus. You still cannot get an ought from an is. Good could be defined as a world of people who love each other, or a world of people who love to eat children. What is wrong then is simply based on your personal preferences.

The arguments I make here don’t describe a perfect system. That’s wasn’t my intention. I believe they do, however, answer your concerns about non-objective morality being insufficient to guide humans.

I understand that this wasn't meant to be perfect. It has, however, raised more concerns than it answered.

>> ^messenger

@shinyblurry

Of what you said above in the first two paragraphs about the consequences of accepting meaninglessness as reality, just about all of it I fully agree with. For clarity, I’ll mark the exceptions:

the closer you are to death the less happy and hopeful you will become
and
Eventually, when enough tragedy happens to you, you will break down and the future will become more and more like a millstone around your neck.

I found these to be presumptuous. They do happen to some people, maybe even most people, but they don’t happen to all. Many people of no religion, and despite immense tragedies, live happy and fulfilling lives, and feel happy and fulfilled on their death beds. I’d further argue that people with religious faith also get depressed. I suspect you’d counter that anyone who is depressed has insincere faith. That seems tautological to me, but either way, it’s moot, for now.

Further, you comment that, "people become depressed because of a lack of hope."

Some people do, at least in part. It’s a lot more complex than just a lack of hope though. For some people it’s due to a tragedy, or overwhelming cognitive dissonance, or it’s simply chemical, and has no correlation with anything in their lives at all. Maybe I’m nitpicking. I just want to make clear that depression is a mental disorder and is not a synonym for, "lack of hope because I don’t have God in my life."

For all of our so-called progress, humanity is just as sick and depraved as it always has been. Evil is increasing, not decreasing, and mankinds destructive appetites will never be satiated. There is no hope in man, but there is in God. I think you know that.

Here you slipped into metaphysical talk that means nothing to me, full of judgemental words ("sick and depraved") and terms that I had just told you I don’t accept as objective concepts ("evil"). You also know that I don’t think there’s any hope in your Yahweh God since he’s a mythological character, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.

(Also, not that it’s critical to the discussion, but I’d like a reference for your poll about young people not knowing who Hitler was.)

All that is to say I pretty much agree with your view of what meaninglessness implies, and if there’s any bits that you want to explore more, I’m all for it.

Now, about "bliss". I didn’t define what I meant by that, so you didn’t understand it. I’ll make up for that now. By “bliss”, I don’t mean immediate pleasure, or instant gratification, or fulfillment of a goal, or basically anything you mentioned. I do mean a great powerful feeling of being centred, being in tune, achieving self-fulfillment, overflowing joy, love, inner peace, elation, connection, lightness, "harmony", "rapture" or a feeling that many describe as "doing what I was born to do/meant to be doing" or "transcendent". It’s the kind of happy that boosts your immune system and makes people around you feel good about themselves as well. (The words in quotes aren’t words I tend to use myself—I’m employing them to help clarify the concept I’m talking about.)

If you understand now what I mean by "bliss" (as opposed to instant gratification, etc.), you’ll understand that people don’t follow their bliss and rape people, nor find inner peace by beating their wives, and so there’s no need to append any rules about not hurting. I can’t imagine how anybody’s bliss could ever include causing harm to other people, but I’ll even address that hypothetical, towards the end of this comment.

Lots of people do bad things to others and themselves, and later on, some may consider what they did was bad, or they might not. If they still think it was OK, it’s because they’ve used some kind of justification, like, "She did it to me first," "She was teasing me. What did she think would happen?" or, "He had it coming," or "I had no choice," And so forth. These are all rationalizations after the fact, justifications that allow them to still consider themselves as good people rather than change their behaviour or take responsibility for having done something wrong. These don’t address the real reason these people did these things. In all cases, whatever they did, it was because they were feeling bad about something, weren’t centred, and reacted from "lizard brain" instincts of individual survival rather than from human compassion.

I believe that the natural and best state for a human being to be is happy (and here again, I mean blissfully happy). Every bit of programming we have nudges us towards certain actions by rewarding us with feelings of happiness, or reduced misery. We only live once, so I would modify your description only slightly to, “taking what bliss you can when you can”.

Divine morality isn’t necessary. Having any collective understanding of what is good and what is bad is enough. For most of humanity’s existence, even up to now, there hasn’t been a clear standard. In patches of geography where there was one, it only applied well to that time and culture. Just as ordinary people supplanted kings and emperors as absolute leaders without society collapsing, and just as ordinary people supplanted religions are sole arbiters of the law without society collapsing, ordinary people can supplant religion as arbiter of what is good and what is bad as well, and society will continue not to collapse.

And better than a list of what’s good and what’s bad is a system that determines for us what’s good and what’s bad. I’ve seen one model that I like, delivered by Sam Harris. The most salient bit starts at about 10:00 and runs to around 27:30. If you don’t want to watch it now, I’ll summarise the most important ideas: For a moral code to have meaning, it has to apply to some form of consciousness – it cannot apply to rocks and dust. Then there’s the central point which requires you to imagine "the worst possible misery for everyone", and assume that this situation is "bad". "Good" is then defined in terms of moving people away from this "worst possible misery for everyone". That’s it. I recommend hearing it from Harris himself.

The three advantages that occur to me of this system over Yahweh’s morality are that it’s a simple system rather than a long intricate list, so it’s quick to teach, easy to absorb, understand and reference, hard to corrupt, and all-inclusive; there’s absolutely nothing random about it, so odd details like not being allowed to wear garments made from two different thread types won’t make it in and there’s nothing objectionable about it from the standpoint of people who just want to do the right thing; and it’s truly universal in that it applies equally well now as it would have in 4000 BC China, in 30 AD Mesopotamia, or will in 12 000 AD Mars, so it’s broadly acceptable too. Every act that is good makes things better for people. If an act makes the world worse, then it’s bad. Simple. Lots of generalities can be derived from it, like killing people is bad, respecting other people’s property is good, and there’d be no arbitrary crap about touching pig skin being bad or extra-marital sex being bad.

Even more generally, we clearly don’t require any god to tell us what’s good and what isn’t. We already have a conscience inside us that tells us what’s good and what isn’t regardless of laws. I know you believe that Yahweh made our conscience for us. Even if that were so, it doesn’t change the fact that if properly relied upon, a conscience precludes the need for an external set of laws. Any law that echoes what everyone naturally feels already is superfluous. Any law that contributes to human misery is morally wrong and deserves to be disregarded.

You state that without a divine moral standard that exists outside our consciousness, there is no objective justice. This is true by definition. Without a true objective moral code, you further argue that nobody can condemn any action as bad without being hypocritical, so in effect, everything is permissible. This is not the case, however. Although the moral code I advocate isn’t "objective" in the sense that it exists beyond our consciousness, it is universal among humans. And if we’re only attempting to determine moral behaviour for humans, then a universally accepted standard among humans suffices, regardless of where we think it came from.

The arguments I make here don’t describe a perfect system. That’s wasn’t my intention. I believe they do, however, answer your concerns about non-objective morality being insufficient to guide humans.

I forgot all about this comment. I didn't haunt as much as I knew a lot of them in the group, but the whole elevatorgate just soured me on them. ( http://videosift.com/video/Hey-kids-need-some-help-recognising-legitimate-rape?loadcomm=1#comment-1515449 )
In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I don't know which parts of FTB you haunt(ed), but I still read Pharyngula, Greta Cristina and (to a lesser extent) Blag Hag, and all have a pretty appropriate and ethical attitude when it comes to misogyny and co.

(I don't know what the comments look like though, "I only read it for the articles" ; )
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
In fairness, a lot of them are. I've given up on Freethought blogs for instance.>> ^hpqp:

>> ^Kreegath:
How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬

Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.
Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.
I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant
quality song btw

Thank you for your response, it has made your initial comment much clearer. What you need to understand about the video and why my response was so harsh is that the song, while being directly inspired by Akin's comment, is not only about him, but about society's distrust and often denigration of women when it comes to sexual abuse. While you may have a point about Akin (I doubt it), his "slip-up" does not come from out of the blue, but stems from a sadly widespread misconception of sexual abuse, mostly held by religious conservatives who tend to blame the (female) victim, for being "lose", "asking for it", etc etc (when it pertains to homosexual rape/abuse they chalk it up as part of homosexuality's evils; viz the response to abuse in the RCC).

The reason your comment elicited such a drastic, gut-born response is that it echoes every misogynistic table-turning that crops up when sexual abuse of women is being discussed, i.e. the accusation of "man-hating", "fear-mongering" feminazis (as well as the whole "men get raped too!" trope, which no one is denying). Rare are the feminists who hate men (and those who do are wrong to do so, and generally called out for it); what we hate is patriarchy and everything it entails. The tactic of misrepresenting feminist arguments seemed to me what your sarcastic comment was about, hence my reaction.

So the strawman I copiously insulted was the MRA-hole whose misogynistic intent I read into your comment, and to be quite honest, it was (and still is) very hard to read anything else into it. But you have my apologies for insulting you if that was not what the comment was about. And since you and I are not alone in this exchange, I propose posting our discussion on the thread in question, that way people can see what you meant by your comment and see why I reacted how I did. What think you?
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Where your guessing I'm white comes from, or how my skin color or gender would matter in the least, I don't know. You clearly seem to have some kind of history with MRA people and believe them all to be misogynists, and perhaps they might all be. I don't know, I'm not affiliated with them. But you equating my criticism of the video with being in cahoots with MRA convinced you I had to be pushing some agenda and blinded you not only to the intent of the sarcasm tag but also to any other possible meaning of the post, instead reading a simplistic turning-of-the-tables jab into what you seem to have perceived to be my sexist manifesto. That's the problem with reading a sarcastic post seriously and afterwards taking the sarcasm tag as disingenuous.
What I found objectionable with this video was that the artist misconstrued Todd Akin's incredibly stupid attempt at connecting pregnancy due to rape with his pro-life stance to say so much more than he did, that he considers any of those in lyrics mentioned scenarios of rape to be illegitimate. He didn't say that, though, so with all the things that he could be criticized for, there's no need for the artist to manufacture an outrage that he actually didn't put into words. Maybe you know something about him and his stances on rape that wasn't widely brought up in public during all this, but I only read his public statement linked in the description bar as well as reading about him on wiki and didn't see anything in it even hinting at him thinking all rape is illegitimate. So, what I did was basically the same thing I disliked about the sifted video, taking one aspect of the song that I reacted to; all mentioning of gender as pertaining to rape like: him taking her out, husband's privilege, he didn't have consent, short skirts. As such it's misrepresenting the artist's intended message (as I understand it), that Todd Akin thinks women can't be legitimately raped, to instead say that she thinks only men rape only women, hence the sarcasm tag. It's very easy to put words into other people's mouths.

It's really easy to jump on someone who's already being jumped on, and that is what I thought this video did. I didn't think it brought anything to any discussion, I didn't think it was funny and I thought it was unfunny because I perceived it (and still do, since nobody has divulged any further information) as hate fuel and character attacks based on misrepresentation. This isn't the first time I've reacted to this, as you can see me defending another borderline reprehensible person from what I though was unjust and unwarranted avenue of criticism: http://videosift.com/video/Bill-OReilly-amazed-that-Black-res
taurant-is-civilized

You are free to challenge any post all you like, but telling me to go fuck myself, that I disgust you and that I'm sexist and somehow pushing some misogynistic agenda, which has no basis in anything in the post, is not challenging anything. That's antagonism at best, slander at worst. You don't know anything about me, neither how I act, how I have acted nor how I think and feel, so making all kinds of value judgments on my character and verbally abuse me is completely unwarranted. I didn't discriminate against women in that post, I didn't imply women were less than men, nor do I think that. Both actions and words have consequences, even in internet communities, and any and all rash language and inflammatory rhetoric will still linger on long afterwards.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

Where your guessing I'm white comes from, or how my skin color or gender would matter in the least, I don't know. You clearly seem to have some kind of history with MRA people and believe them all to be misogynists, and perhaps they might all be. I don't know, I'm not affiliated with them. But you equating my criticism of the video with being in cahoots with MRA convinced you I had to be pushing some agenda and blinded you not only to the intent of the sarcasm tag but also to any other possible meaning of the post, instead reading a simplistic turning-of-the-tables jab into what you seem to have perceived to be my sexist manifesto. That's the problem with reading a sarcastic post seriously and afterwards taking the sarcasm tag as disingenuous.
What I found objectionable with this video was that the artist misconstrued Todd Akin's incredibly stupid attempt at connecting pregnancy due to rape with his pro-life stance to say so much more than he did, that he considers any of those in lyrics mentioned scenarios of rape to be illegitimate. He didn't say that, though, so with all the things that he could be criticized for, there's no need for the artist to manufacture an outrage that he actually didn't put into words. Maybe you know something about him and his stances on rape that wasn't widely brought up in public during all this, but I only read his public statement linked in the description bar as well as reading about him on wiki and didn't see anything in it even hinting at him thinking all rape is illegitimate. So, what I did was basically the same thing I disliked about the sifted video, taking one aspect of the song that I reacted to; all mentioning of gender as pertaining to rape like: him taking her out, husband's privilege, he didn't have consent, short skirts. As such it's misrepresenting the artist's intended message (as I understand it), that Todd Akin thinks women can't be legitimately raped, to instead say that she thinks only men rape only women, hence the sarcasm tag. It's very easy to put words into other people's mouths.

It's really easy to jump on someone who's already being jumped on, and that is what I thought this video did. I didn't think it brought anything to any discussion, I didn't think it was funny and I thought it was unfunny because I perceived it (and still do, since nobody has divulged any further information) as hate fuel and character attacks based on misrepresentation. This isn't the first time I've reacted to this, as you can see me defending another borderline reprehensible person from what I though was unjust and unwarranted avenue of criticism: http://videosift.com/video/Bill-OReilly-amazed-that-Black-restaurant-is-civilized

You are free to challenge any post all you like, but telling me to go fuck myself, that I disgust you and that I'm sexist and somehow pushing some misogynistic agenda, which has no basis in anything in the post, is not challenging anything. That's antagonism at best, slander at worst. You don't know anything about me, neither how I act, how I have acted nor how I think and feel, so making all kinds of value judgments on my character and verbally abuse me is completely unwarranted. I didn't discriminate against women in that post, I didn't imply women were less than men, nor do I think that. Both actions and words have consequences, even in internet communities, and any and all rash language and inflammatory rhetoric will still linger on long afterwards.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

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