In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
The Level of Evil is Astonishing
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Last: 1 yr ago by GQaggie
Seemingly simple, but Luke 6:45.
The ruler of Egypt over 1200 years ago ordered that all male babies be killed by the midwives. Man's fallen and evil nature is nothing new.
The Lone Stranger
Evil is the absence of God. Far too many have embraced this.
They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2
Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
Now do all of the murders and the slavery and the genocide when abortion was illegal.
Nope. Not biting on your red herring.Sapper Redux said:Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
Now do all of the murders and the slavery and the genocide when abortion was illegal.
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2
What red herring. You made a specific claim that can be contested throughout human history. You want abortion to be somehow causative, but you can't actually explain how in comparison to every other era of our history.Martin Cash said:Nope. Not biting on your red herring.Sapper Redux said:Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
Now do all of the murders and the slavery and the genocide when abortion was illegal.
If it really is your religion that is the only thing stopping you from comitting mass murder then I encourage you to attend church as much as possible. I would also encourage you to seek help from mental health professionals and talk to them about your urges.nortex97 said:
Evil is the absence of God. Far too many have embraced this.
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Setting asside the whole abortion is murder thing, I find it facinating that a person who attended college can still present an argument riddled with logical fallacies.Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Umm…Aggie_Swag18 said:If it really is your religion that is the only thing stopping you from comitting mass murder then I encourage you to attend church as much as possible. I would also encourage you to seek help from mental health professionals and talk to them about your urges.nortex97 said:
Evil is the absence of God. Far too many have embraced this.
The only person I know in public life to have written about fantasies about killing kids himself is Robert Francis O'Rourke. I don't think he ever got help, but this is something I hope more do. Demons are real.
Sounds like you have some kind of ethical boundary you don't want people crossing. Why is that and can you justify it?Aggie_Swag18 said:If it really is your religion that is the only thing stopping you from comitting mass murder then I encourage you to attend church as much as possible. I would also encourage you to seek help from mental health professionals and talk to them about your urges.nortex97 said:
Evil is the absence of God. Far too many have embraced this.
I find it fascinating that so many of you on here can't provide justification for your beliefs haha. Especially the atheist/materialist types on here. Please provide justification for the immaterial principles you cling so dearly to lol. Even an attempt would be nice to see.Aggie_Swag18 said:Setting asside the whole abortion is mudrder thing, I find it facinating that a person who attended college can still present an argument riddled with logical fallacies.Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
They're moral post turtles. Didn't get there by themselves, no idea how it happened, can't do anything once they're there.
You offer no definitions for the terms you use and yet you toss them around like they are Platonic forms known to all. So how are you defining justification? Because we've talked at length about the problems we have through historical and scientific evidence, personal experience, issues in the text itself, etc... So how are you defining these terms?Orthodox Texan said:I find it fascinating that so many of you on here can't provide justification for your beliefs haha. Especially the atheist/materialist types on here. Please provide justification for the immaterial principles you cling so dearly to lol. Even an attempt would be nice to see.Aggie_Swag18 said:Setting asside the whole abortion is mudrder thing, I find it facinating that a person who attended college can still present an argument riddled with logical fallacies.Martin Cash said:They grew up in a country where it is not only ok, but celebrated for a mother to murder her own child. Why should we be surprised?Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
You're going to have to work harder at making your point then. Just from directly reading it you seem to believe the only reason not to kill people is the belief in the Christian God and fear of eternal punishment. If that's the only thing that stops you from killing people I feel much safer with you believing in that.
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Most people get their ethics from empathy.
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
No, I am not. See, I am operating outside of your (absolute) moral prerogatives. Think about it?Aggie_Swag18 said:
You're going to have to work harder at making your point then.
Not sure what my beliefs have to do with being able to put forward a logical argument not riddled with fallacies. I expected better from someone who attended/was admitted to A&M
Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Well, ya know (or not), that's a problem. Caring, or saying to do so, is not always helping.Aggie_Swag18 said:
Most people get their ethics from empathy.
The only logical moral foundation some people have is "no religion". That's it.
This is your new shtick, isn't it? You've posted this same question on like 4 different threads in the last week.Orthodox Texan said:
I find it fascinating that so many of you on here can't provide justification for your beliefs haha. Especially the atheist/materialist types on here. Please provide justification for the immaterial principles you cling so dearly to lol. Even an attempt would be nice to see.
Here is a part of an answer. I cannot provide justification for my morals that will reach to a level of completeness and coherence that you will find satisfactory. I think this is a commonplace problem for people who do not make the presupposition that an objective morality exists and that it can be known. You might see it as irrational or as something worthy of derision. I see it as honest grappling with existentialism and with problems of non existent (or at least non apparent) objective truths.
Plenty of philosophers have attempted an explanation of humanist or secular morality. I doubt I could articulate my ideas as well as many of them. But, I'll continue to work at it.
Even if you are right, your method of dealing with us has just devolved into ridicule and snobbery. So . . . uh, congrats on that. I
Zobel said:
They're moral post turtles. Didn't get there by themselves, no idea how it happened, can't do anything once they're there.
Could all morals be considered post turtles from a human perspective? Is saying 'x' is moral or immoral because God says so an explanation or simply a believed assertion? I have no doubt that you could go down all sorts of rabbit holes with this answer explaining what you believe, why you believe, and how you get from reason 'a' to seemingly logical explanations 'b' to show how religions get to their posts. But, faith and belief and religions presuppositions still underpin religion, do they not?
At the end of the day you have to have an axiomatic position, that's fine. The problem is without an external footing axioms are either arbitrary or relative, and they will always struggling from a technical philosophical or logical framework as wanting (completeness or truth criteria issues).
The bigger issue is that modern American secular morality is just 99% of the axioms of Christianity with some arbitrary things removed, and makes no justification whatever for what is excluded or what remains, and no understanding of how the structures within the system work or interrelate. Ironically this is almost completely identical to how we have treated the constitution. So it's probably just reflective of who we are as a society.
The bigger issue is that modern American secular morality is just 99% of the axioms of Christianity with some arbitrary things removed, and makes no justification whatever for what is excluded or what remains, and no understanding of how the structures within the system work or interrelate. Ironically this is almost completely identical to how we have treated the constitution. So it's probably just reflective of who we are as a society.
Zobel said:
At the end of the day you have to have an axiomatic position, that's fine. The problem is without an external footing axioms are either arbitrary or relative, and they will always struggling from a technical philosophical or logical framework as wanting (completeness or truth criteria issues).
The bigger issue is that modern American secular morality is just 99% of the axioms of Christianity with some arbitrary things removed, and makes no justification whatever for what is excluded or what remains, and no understanding of how the structures within the system work or interrelate. Ironically this is almost completely identical to how we have treated the constitution. So it's probably just reflective of who we are as a society.
It makes sense that American secular morality would resemble Christianity more than other organized religions. I think its consistent with the idea that people are, at least partially, products of their environment and upbringing.
What are the arbitrary things removed that you are concerned about?
I am well aware that my values and morals have been influenced by Christianity. And by a Jewish wife and exposure to secular ideas and lots of other factors. To me, the places where I've diverged from Christianity seem less arbitrary. Though, if exposure to those factors could be attributed to randomness, maybe those divergences are more arbitrary. If we attribute too much of what we believe to our environment and experiences we cannot control, then all of our morals and values are affectively arbitrarily decided.
As the author John C. Wright noted " Merely because it happens to be a scientific fact that human beings have such-and-such an instinct or such-and-such a behavior, this creates no necessary moral obligation, in itself, to follow rather than fight that instinct. You cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is".kurt vonnegut said:This is your new shtick, isn't it? You've posted this same question on like 4 different threads in the last week.Orthodox Texan said:
I find it fascinating that so many of you on here can't provide justification for your beliefs haha. Especially the atheist/materialist types on here. Please provide justification for the immaterial principles you cling so dearly to lol. Even an attempt would be nice to see.
Here is a part of an answer. I cannot provide justification for my morals that will reach to a level of completeness and coherence that you will find satisfactory. I think this is a commonplace problem for people who do not make the presupposition that an objective morality exists and that it can be known. You might see it as irrational or as something worthy of derision. I see it as honest grappling with existentialism and with problems of non existent (or at least non apparent) objective truths.
Plenty of philosophers have attempted an explanation of humanist or secular morality. I doubt I could articulate my ideas as well as many of them. But, I'll continue to work at it.
Even if you are right, your method of dealing with us has just devolved into ridicule and snobbery. So . . . uh, congrats on that. I
Because it is more immediate and familiar let's do this with the US Constitution.Quote:
What are the arbitrary things removed that you are concerned about?
To understand the US Constitution you really only need to read a handful of books, something like Aristotle's Politics, Plato's Republic, Herodotus' Histories, plus then-contemporary works like Locke's Second Treatise, Neville's Plato Redivivus, and Sidney's Discourses.
If you read the US Constitution without those, and then read them, then go back and read it again, you will have a dramatically different understanding of the meaning of the document. You can understand it as a system, as a design. The best book to really grab that part is Politics, especially Book III. It shows the fundamental trade-offs, the choices you have to make when making a system. The rest give you insight into how that knowledge impacted and informed the choices they made.
Once you see it as a designed system it makes no sense to remove one part or add another without considering the effect on the whole, any more than you would arbitrarily remove one cylinder or belt from your car or add another. It might work, it might even work well, but it wouldn't be the same.
Watershed changes to our system of governance include the direct election of senators and the creation of a permanent standing army. I once read a elementary school test on the constitution from the 1800s - I looked through my email and can't find it unfortunately, it was from years ago - and it was incredible how different their perspective was on some things.
The US Constitution is no more a document dropped from the sky than the Bible is. People tend to a binary approach to both - either fundamentalist literalism or structural disregard. But neither is appropriate to either one. You can no more tinker with one than the other without destabilizing both.
I could rewrite your first sentence as "It makes sense that current American
The point I'm struggling to make is that as a general rule you can't take complex systems and make changes to them and expect them to remain stable or functional if you don't have a deep understanding of those systems. The US Constitution is comparatively simple and easier to grasp than the whole framework of post-Christian morality; it is itself embedded or dependent on the latter.
Most modern secularists have no issue with simply erasing chunks out of Christian morality, saying "well I'm only influenced by it, not indebted to it or dependent on it." But that works exactly as well as reading the US Constitution and saying we don't need this whole Article 1 Section 1 bit.
Buford T. Justice said:
In both of the demonic people that killed innocent kids in Uvalde.and Centerbille. How does one have that little empathy or value for life?
You live in a country that murders nearly a million infants a year in the name of "rights" and "freedom." In fact, it is willing to tear itself apart at the slightest curtailment of this false "right."
Literally none of that should surprise you.
The flames of the Imperium burn brightly in the hearts of men repulsed by degenerate modernity. Souls aflame with love of goodness, truth, beauty, justice, and order.
I have some concerns about the analogy with the Constitution. The Constitution is a man made document describing a political framework. And its authors had the foresight to write in a process for changes and amendments. I doubt that anyone here would object to the amendment that abolished slavery. And it seems that it could be implemented in a way that would not undermine the whole framework . . . even if it isn't what all of the original authors intended. My understanding of Christian morality is that there is not an intended built in amendment process that allows for major changes . . . .unless you are Mormon. If a deviation from that religious morality results in something better, then it means that your starting point was flawed from the start. I don't want to speak for you or any Christians, but I don't think the prevailing thought is that Christian morality is flawed and needs to be subject to tinkering and amendment to make it better. Right?Zobel said:
I could rewrite your first sentence as "It makes sense that current Americansecular moralitygovernment would resembleChristianitythe US Constitution more than otherorganized religionssystems of governance." Well yes, that is perfectly true, in both cases. But what you're saying is not relevant to whether the current system or morality or governance is better, or sustainable, or stable, or an effective expression of what preceded it.
The point I'm struggling to make is that as a general rule you can't take complex systems and make changes to them and expect them to remain stable or functional if you don't have a deep understanding of those systems. The US Constitution is comparatively simple and easier to grasp than the whole framework of post-Christian morality; it is itself embedded or dependent on the latter.
Most modern secularists have no issue with simply erasing chunks out of Christian morality, saying "well I'm only influenced by it, not indebted to it or dependent on it." But that works exactly as well as reading the US Constitution and saying we don't need this whole Article 1 Section 1 bit.
Nevertheless, you have splits and fractures in Christianity and other religions like the Reformation where one group left The Church to start new churches. In their mind, I'm sure they felt the changes being made were necessary to maintain that stability and function. Did these splits result in a better more stable religion? Depends on who you ask, right?
As to the question of whether modern secularism is better, more sustainable, more stable, or more effective than what preceded it? I think its clearly also a subjective question.
I believe that the question of what is and is not moral is more complicated to someone who is not religious. That doesn't mean we are wrong. It just means there isn't one agreed upon book to read with all the answers and that not all moral secularists believe in the exact same thing. You think that we have destabilized a previously stable system of morals. I think that the previous system of morals was already unstable and that I should be open to amending it where needed - even if that means replacing massive parts of its infrastructure and framework structure. Even if it isn't 100% stable or internally consistent, I think its better on account of the removal of what I saw as huge instabilities. You'll obviously disagree and poke holes in places. Please continue to do so and I'll continue to try to explore those concerns and work toward being better.
And. . . you want secularists to say we are indebted to Christianity? Do you all want a trophy saying "World's Greatest Religion to Deconvert From"?
In seriousness, we are indebted to Christian philosophers that came before us. And to secular philosophers. And other philosophers. But, you make it sound as though we OWE you something. BluHorseShu said:
As the author John C. Wright noted " Merely because it happens to be a scientific fact that human beings have such-and-such an instinct or such-and-such a behavior, this creates no necessary moral obligation, in itself, to follow rather than fight that instinct. You cannot deduce an "ought" from an "is".
Can an "ought" statement be justified by a religious belief that cannot be demonstrated, proven, or questioned?
Analogies are always limited, but the thing I was trying to get at was - even if we take a purely secular view of Christian morality and limit it to a kind of structure or system, going at it willy-nilly and changing things "because I don't agree with that" is a bad way to do it. Just like it's a bad way to deal with the US Constitution.
And abolishing slavery the way we did it was a bad way to do it. Abolishing slavery was an unmitigated good. They way it went about was just wrong, bad, and resulted in millions of Americans dying. It actually violated the Constitution in a way that invalidated the whole thing. But that's a weird subject.
And abolishing slavery the way we did it was a bad way to do it. Abolishing slavery was an unmitigated good. They way it went about was just wrong, bad, and resulted in millions of Americans dying. It actually violated the Constitution in a way that invalidated the whole thing. But that's a weird subject.
I can't see any possible argument that the Protestant Reformation (or the Great Schism that preceded it) made for a more stable Christianity.Quote:
Did these splits result in a better more stable religion? Depends on who you ask, right?
That's shifting the focus. The question is not whether modern secularism is better etc. than what preceded it. It's understanding the systems enough to understand the effect of each incremental change. I think this is the (very poorly communicated) foundation of a lot of the protests to changes on the progressive side of things. People on the conservative (not political, but moral / social) see that it's like playing jenga. You can't do the game forever. Jordan Peterson and others like him are sounding this warning, and they're not coming at it from a Christian perspective. Eventually this path leads to a fracture, the center cannot hold against the fringe forever as long as you continually deny the premise.Quote:
As to the question of whether modern secularism is better, more sustainable, more stable, or more effective than what preceded it? I think its clearly also a subjective question.
That's a better line of argumentation, but I would say more that society is actively destabilizing a functional equilibrium. And we should also note there is a difference between the framework of morality, or its theology, and the social structures and institutional accretions which grow up around it. You can have as big a disjunction between a moral or theological framework and its religious institutional expression as we currently do today between the US Constitution and the Federal Government. The fun question becomes which is the real USG? The one on paper that says how it should be, or the one in DC that looks nothing like it?Quote:
You think that we have destabilized a previously stable system of morals. I think that the previous system of morals was already unstable and that I should be open to amending it where needed - even if that means replacing massive parts of its infrastructure and framework structure.
Yes, you absolutely do. People who inherit a system have some baseline obligation to the system. Borrowing an analogy from Peterson here, a basketball club that brings in new members does so on the assumption that those people want to join a basketball club. People who come in with the intention of changing the game from basketball to baseball are fundamentally destabilizing to the basketball club, regardless of whether or not they (correctly) feel that baseball is a superior game to basketball. At the minimum what I would like people like you to do, what I feel you are obligated to do, is understand the framework that you are working within. You can't do anything about that, you didn't get to choose. But it's the same baseline expectation we have for citizens in the US. Call it the moral version of civic virtue; its the basic functional requirement for a citizen.Quote:
In seriousness, we are indebted to Christian philosophers that came before us. And to secular philosophers. And other philosophers. But, you make it sound as though we OWE you something.
It's funny the christians who like to scoff at a lack of objective morality forget they cannot demonstrate that such a thing exists and that even if it did, that they have access to it.
We've done this thread many times, and time and again we end up in the same place. So unless between the eleventy threads on the subject we've had and now you've finally discovered an actual objective morality-or even for starters an answer to Euthyphro's dilemma that is better than the highly flawed "god's nature is good" response....spare us
Subjective morality is all we have.
We've done this thread many times, and time and again we end up in the same place. So unless between the eleventy threads on the subject we've had and now you've finally discovered an actual objective morality-or even for starters an answer to Euthyphro's dilemma that is better than the highly flawed "god's nature is good" response....spare us
Subjective morality is all we have.
Even a subjectively good system shouldn't be arbitrarily tampered with. The philosophical or logical problems with the approach are bad enough. The pragmatic problems go on top of that.
I'm not arguing for arbitrary tampering, merely laughing at those poo pooing subjective morality. Religions can develop good rules even if their foundations are false. But I suspect you will find some tampering arbitrary while I consider it thoughtfully discarded.
Zobel
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