religion - coping mechanism. we need to grow up.

[BIG DICK RICK]

jesus christ kami...you should write a book bout this shit, with as much as you have to say haha   

[reaper]

If GOD decides what is moral for everyone, and he destroys entire towns like the bible claims was done to Gomorah and Sodom, does that mean it was completely morally acceptable for America to destroy 2 Japanese towns that like Sodom and Gomorah did not directly affect the destroyer in question?

The answer is NO, and that leads to a double standard. Supposedly God is perfect and without sin, but his actions can be immoral? BRAIN OVERLOAD!!!

There is a saying .. *** ***** ** ********** ****

[Kami]

"i never said that. you made that assumption.i don't know how much research you have done. you just come off like a typical holier than thou, athiest who is never wrong. so you failed to convince me that i have attacked your character, nor have i appealed to any emotion, prejudice, or special interest. i was stating that many other people have come to the same conclusion. your not the only person who has. "

why would you even bother posting what you did in the first place?  or do you really believe that i'm truly the first enlightened person and should stop the presses?  yeah i didn't think so.  look, it's over.  it's still in your post and quoted in mine.  it's right there dude, and its not even this big e-crime you seem to try to be explaining yourself out of.  i really don't take offense to it, but yeah i'll point it out if you're trying to debate with me and have to sink to a low point just to get words in.

"Could you put more words in my mouth kami? that is the biggest fallacious, most rediculous statement i heard. you obviously don't understand what i wrote. i said morality is subjective with or without law, meaning individuals choose what is right or wrong based on a religious doctrine or lack thereof.(atheism). your pointing to an islamic doctrine when i have made no mention of that. how is anyone responsible for what someone else believes? how is their behavior condoned because i'm stating people interpret ethical standards differently and independently. "

you said subjective, not me.  and you saying "with or without law" doesn't change what subjective morality means.  what you're talking about is MORAL RELATIVISM.  i've been trying to get you to use that term for ages now.  and moral relativism does. not. work.  why doesn't it work?  the islam example is a perfect one for dispelling this shit.  and it doesn't matter if you don't talk about islam.  hey maybe if i don't talk about kids killing animals it doesn't happen guys.

what you're saying is morality is subjective, *ahem*, "with or without law".  either you need to get a new word, start referring to it as moral relativism, or stop talking about something you haven't even learned about.  you say the words subjective and choose.  this means the rules for which morality can be derived are arbitrary.  this is from your explanation: 
scenario one - i can create a church and gain followers, and i could create a commandment that says you should steal from your neighbor at all times.  this would be considered moral if people followed it, because they believe in the church and derived morality from my commandments
or
scenario two - because morality is subjective, i choose not to follow the commandment of "do not covet thy neighbor's possessions".  since said morals are not objective, i can read this document and subjectively weigh in each one, finding that this one is insignificant.  in this case, subjectively, i choose to derive morality from this document.  in this case, why would god create something called "commandments" when they really should have been called "very serious suggestions"?

you are being intentionally vague with the word subjective for some reason.  these two possibilities can be derived from your use of subjectivity in morality.  scenario one sides more on the principle of moral relativism.  this, for me and most of the thread, is what we've gotten out of your talking.  and since there's more of us than the one person you are representing here, im assuming this means you fucked up when writing it, not me or the other people reading it.

scenario two talks about how there is, in fact, objective morality, but because such morality can be derived differently from person to person, there is no standard in weighing right or wrong at all.  there are only shades of gray.  this is what you sound like you're talking about now, but, if you are indeed a christian, i probably wouldn't admit to this.  moses called them commandments for a reason.  this also means you cannot objectively agree that murder is wrong, because the outcome depends solely on the person it is being presented to.  and this is wrong. 

there are indeed things we as humans of sound mind will agree upon as right and as wrong.  this list is very very small, because there are only a few situations in which morality can be considered completely objective for humanity.  and that would be things like not murdering people, protecting the young and/or the pregnant.  these sorts of things are derived from a survival standpoint very early in our development. 

if we murdered our neighbors, we would have less people in the tribe, less people to hunt/protect the women and children.  the odds of survival go down as there is objective safety in numbers.  as for protecting the young and pregnant, this also has to do with the survival of our tribes.  to survive as humans we need our offspring to be healthy and to someday do the jobs we did.  this is a very survival oriented mindset and something that all humans of sound mind were able to do without having to contemplate the complex philosophical underpinnings of morality. 

we had this well before commandments ever existed and before christian prophets ever graced the earth with their presence.  so when i say christianity has nothing to do with morality, i'd say that's pretty good evidence of that.

if you want to talk about helping the fellow man, more often than not, it pays the survival of the group for communal aid to be given.  when one member is down, that's one member not reproducing or hunting or protecting or nurturing.  however, since abstract thought wasn't as high, such a thing was probably abused very little so that such a system worked.  other than being the alpha male, there was little to be ambitious about.  morality?  before christ?  well i never!

----

the rest of your post attempts to talk about my points as strawman even though it was completely your fault for not explaining what you meant about moral subjectivity (you know, since no one uses that terminology), so i don't believe  i need to address it.  i still think you're backpedaling and actually meant moral relativism based on your former posts, but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and have addressed your last post only.

some holier than thou atheist i am, eh

[|iR|Focalor]

There is a saying .

No there isn't. Quit making shit up, you shit maker upper.

[Whirlingdervish]

There is a saying .

No there isn't. Quit making shit up, you shit maker upper.

 

[Whirlingdervish]

i care not for semantics.

BULLSHIT. If you remove God and the Bible from your 'arguments', semantics are all you have left.

[QwazyWabbit]

I suppose you'd also say that killing for sport alone is immoral.

Cats are immoral. They kill birds for fun.

I don't really know what point I'm trying to make. Maybe that I really fucking hate cats.

Cats are not immoral. They are amoral. They don't know right from wrong and make no judgements about good and bad. (Except water on paws. This is generally regarded as bad by cats. I can tell, they don't like going out on the wet porch when it rains. My cats do, however, regard water on paws as good, when they want to drink the water out of my glass when I am sitting here in front of my computer. I regard this as bad. Bad kitties! So you see, morality is relative.)

Tigers, I am told, LOVE water. Water on paws, water on backs, swimming, snorkeling, tigers are GOOD.

Cats do NOT kill birds for fun. They kill birds for sport.*  Boy do you fucking hate cats.

* Same as Man. See duck, goose, turkey hunting for comparison.

[Whirlingdervish]

 

[QuakeDuke]

I suppose you'd also say that killing for sport alone is immoral.

Cats are immoral. They kill birds for fun.
I don't really know what point I'm trying to make. Maybe that I really fucking hate cats.

Cats are not immoral. They are amoral. They don't know right from wrong and make no judgements about good and bad. (Except water on paws. This is generally regarded as bad by cats. I can tell, they don't like going out on the wet porch when it rains. My cats do, however, regard water on paws as good, when they want to drink the water out of my glass when I am sitting here in front of my computer. I regard this as bad. Bad kitties! So you see, morality is relative.)

Tigers, I am told, LOVE water. Water on paws, water on backs, swimming, snorkeling, tigers are GOOD.

Cats do NOT kill birds for fun. They kill birds for sport. Boy do you fucking hate cats.

My cats will kill anything they can - mice, chipmunks, mole, voles, rabbits, lizards, snakes and sundry other moving things. Then they bring them up on the front porch and eat the heads off and leave the guts hanging out for me as though to say "Here, see what  gooooood puddy tats we are. See how much we love you? We share our  food with you....."  My youngest grandson - soon to be 5 - thinks this is the best thing ever and whenever they come over always looks and asks, "Grandpa, what have the cats hunted today?....   They don't seem to care if it's raining or not, as long as they get fed....

QD

[QwazyWabbit]

There was a feral cat study done in Wisconsin a few years ago to determine whether they posed a threat to the songbird population. The study concluded that the majority of cats do NOT predate birds effectively and don't pose a threat.

My cats sit on the window sill and chitter at the birds they see outside. Really strange behavior and they all seem to do it.

I have concluded that the cats want the birds to join their choir group.
Unfortunately, the cats only meet to sing at night when most of the birds are asleep.
Except the owls... all they seem to do is hunt mice (Cat's 2nd favorite food) and postulate declarative questions. "Whooo!"

[Kami]

this thread is getting more and more off topic.  i'd like to keep on topic here

[QwazyWabbit]

Just another cat hater! 

[|iR|Focalor]

I know I kinda sorta got this main topic derailed with the cat comment, but I did have more of a point to it than I initially admitted to.

I personally view humans no different than cats or any other animal. We are animals. I don't believe that a god created us in his image, and I don't think that we are "special".

I used to work as a greenhouse manager a few years back, and I watched a stray cat kill a couple of birds that were trapped in the office. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, and I figured he'd just eat them afterwards. I didn't really want to see the birds get killed, but that's nature for you. In nature, one animal kills the other for food. But he had no interest in eating them afterwards. I set the dead birds in front of him and he wanted nothing more to do with them.

All I'm saying is that things like "morals" and concepts of good and evil are all things created by the human mind. They do not naturally exist, they are manufactured. I'm not saying they are bad. Without them, life would be a lot more miserable. Emotions are a big part of each individuals conceptualization of good and evil. But emotions also play a part in why animals have certain instincts. I'm suggesting that killing for sport is a natural instinct in carnivorous creatures like humans and cats alike because it allows for the creature to feel good about being dominant and supreme in his habitat for that moment in time.

Want further evidence of this concept in action? Look at the Quake2 tdm scene and all of the chest-beating bravado. Winning a grudge match allows the person to feel superior.

I see the same behavior in 90% of the worlds religions. Person X feels superior to person Y because he is part of what he thinks is the "one true religion" whilst person Y is obviously misguided and wrong. I forget who it was, maybe Freud or Sarte, that postulated something along the lines of "one of the basic instincts of man is to never feel incompetent." I think the word "incompetent" could be replaced with "inferior" without losing any meaning at all.

[Kami]

as for the cat thing, it can be argued that cat's instincts as far as hunting will trump any regards to taking life.  as in, the more domesticated they are, the more likely they will kill without reason.  cats in the wild get plenty of hunting exercise because that is how they will eat.  it is not often you hear of cats in the wild killing for the sake of killing, because most of the time they do not have such a luxury.  because hunting is a very strong survival mechanism, and, because of such instincts, one's life is more important to uphold than another's, this is important for the cat.  if the hunting instincts die down, so do the odds of survival (even in domesticated cats as hunting instincts are strong, so it stands to reason that this also happens within their brains).

the wild is hard  to uphold morality.  in the wild, to be safe is to be suspicious of any other living thing other than your own kind.  an animal, essentially, cannot trust a member of a different kind.  sometimes they cannot even trust members of their own kind.  morality exists as instincts in taking care of their own, in some cases, taking care of their wounded and their females.  the higher brained mammals such as dogs/wolves, cats/big cats, elephants, etc they all have specific instincts regarding to their own kind.  elephants will risk their lives to rescue their young, as will the others, within reason.

but if you take an animal out of the wild, you will find they can cooperate.  cats can befriend birds, dogs befriending cats, there have been wolves befriending humans and so forth.  it shows that outside the wild, these animals can develop relationships that are not primarily based on survival, and thus will trust another kind.  this is true morality, this is knowing that they are relatively safe they may pursue such relationships.  and is the same for us when we left the wild and created society.

so yes, i do believe morality exists within these animals and ourselves, not just as a concept we invented, but a by product of certain instincts for survival that are vestigal and remain in our brains well after we have left the wild.

[quadz]

I personally view humans no different than cats or any other animal. We are animals.

Indeed, I hope we can all agree that homo sapiens sapiens are primates, and as such, are inarguably members of the animal kingdom.

However, we do seem to be different from other animals with regard to our ability to use complex language, and reason abstractly and symbolically.

I think this ability must factor into whether an animal's behavior can be judged to be moral:

but if you take an animal out of the wild, you will find they can cooperate. cats can befriend birds, dogs befriending cats, there have been wolves befriending humans and so forth. it shows that outside the wild, these animals can develop relationships that are not primarily based on survival, and thus will trust another kind. this is true morality, this is knowing that they are relatively safe they may pursue such relationships. and is the same for us when we left the wild and created society.

so yes, i do believe morality exists within these animals and ourselves, not just as a concept we invented, but a by product of certain instincts for survival that are vestigal and remain in our brains well after we have left the wild.

I would posit that the behavior of individuals of our species, before we developed complex language, could be considered to be 'amoral' -- and in that respect no different, as Focalor has written above, from any other animal.

I completely agree that the basis for much of what we might term innate moral instincts, probably evolved over a lengthy chain of ancestral species.

But I resist the idea of applying the terms 'moral' or 'immoral 'to the behavior of animals who do not demonstrate the capability to reflect at (some) length on the implications of their actions.


Regards,