08-06-2010, 07:01 PM
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#136
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Xans wrote
Ahh, ghoul is the type of arrogant atheist I remember. I could have swore I had him on ignore though. I'll have to remedy that situation. Or maybe it was another forum lol.
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Ahh the sweetly-stupid projection of the religiously disordered! Making claims to divine favor, and then assigning arrogance to those who reject his delusions of grandeur! And what a powerful strategy it is to troll an atheist forum, and put the atheists on ignore!
If he can't read the derision directed against him, it will give him a feeling of empowerment. After all, denial is the best way to negate reality! What a dunce!
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-06-2010, 07:04 PM
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#137
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Quote:
Sternwallow wrote
Intentional killing is not an accident, for sure, but many authorities contend that it is not murder if the croaker somehow needs to be killed.
I would likely say that, if you could have managed to be elsewhere then your excuse of self-defense is not viable.
In a closely related scenario, a guy who runs into a group of armed police, waving two (toy) guns and shouting insults, is committing suicide just as clearly as if he puts the barrel of a real gun in his mouth and blows his head off.
My position is that killing a human is murder and sometimes murder is justified (as determined by society).
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Notice that instead of trying to think of ways to minimize the killing of our fellow human beings, Xans, like so many other religious zealots with crippled thought processes, seems to get a boner thinking about ways to justify his killing?
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-06-2010, 07:10 PM
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#138
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Sternwallow wrote
You go to war because a bunch of old men want something that they think can only be achieved by warfare and they would rather that you fight and bleed and die than that they do it themselves. The more they want whatever it is, the more they work to convince you that the cause is just.You kill people you love when you become convinced that you must, even if that is not true. Patriotic music and banners help sell the notion that you personally must put yourself in harm's way and then claim self-defense for killing as many of those lousy _________s as you can.
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It's easy for servile automatons like Xans to pull the trigger on the "enemy". After all, the old men in authority want the enemy dead. That makes it all morally correct for Xans and his blood drinking lunatic lot. He can destroy the lives of his fellow humans, and still think himself morally superior to them in the same instant. Religion makes cognitive dissonance so easy!
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-06-2010, 07:13 PM
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#139
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
nkb wrote
Do you still not see how dishonest and stupid you are being?
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Apparently not! As long as the rest of us do, the mindless prattle of blood-drinking cattle is just another moo that echoes with irrelevance through eternity.
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-06-2010, 09:55 PM
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#140
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I Live Here
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 23,211
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Quote:
ghoulslime wrote
It's easy for servile automatons like Xans to pull the trigger on the "enemy". After all, the old men in authority want the enemy dead. That makes it all morally correct for Xans and his blood drinking lunatic lot. He can destroy the lives of his fellow humans, and still think himself morally superior to them in the same instant. Religion makes cognitive dissonance so easy!
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The notion of a "Just War" is nothing but substituting a bogus slogan for a failure to adequately justify the insane waste of lives and fortunes.
Self defense can possibly be a valid justification in hand-to-hand combat, but even it fails when lobbing tons of "anti-personnel" ordinance over a hill at masses of people who, though intending to harm you, are not doing so at the moment.
There are Wars that must be fought for some very good reasons, but I think no War is "Just", especially for those fighting for an empty slogan. I note that the command "take that hill at all cost" is used preferentially to the alternative: "kill everyone who is defending that hill".
"Those who most loudly proclaim their honesty are least likely to possess it."
"Atheism: rejecting all absurdity." S.H.
"Reality, the God alternative"
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08-06-2010, 09:57 PM
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#141
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I Live Here
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 23,211
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Quote:
ghoulslime wrote
Apparently not! As long as the rest of us do, the mindless prattle of blood-drinking cattle is just another moo that echoes with irrelevance through eternity.
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Yes, except that this flavor of irrelevance is both powerful and deadly (and well funded).
"Those who most loudly proclaim their honesty are least likely to possess it."
"Atheism: rejecting all absurdity." S.H.
"Reality, the God alternative"
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08-07-2010, 12:32 AM
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#142
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I Live Here
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Around the way
Posts: 12,641
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Quote:
Xans wrote
Any examples I give of a moral devolution would probably be considered an evolution according to you. "Our" 21st century Western society no longer considers killing an unborn child murder. It no longer considers taxes beyond a certain percentage theft. It considers the execution of capitol criminals murder. It has lost it's understanding of the value and virtue of work and self reliance.
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The Bible doesn't specifically address abortion, as it was not a viable medical procedure until relatively recent in human history. So, that's a flawed example if you're seeking to demonstrate a degeneration of our moral standards over 2,000 years time.
Otherwise, women throughout history, for their own personal reasons, have attempted to induce abortions when they felt they had to. The means to achieve abortion were often unsafe and even lethal, not only for the embryo or fetus, but for the pregnant woman, as well.
Of course, it also was not unknown during the Bronze Age for maurading hordes to attack the women of enemy tribes and rip the fetuses straight from their wombs. Yes, such barbarous behavior happens even today. However, in much of the modern world, our collective moral values would not allow us to sanction such behavior under any circumstances. Pretty universally, we would recognize it as an atrocity, no matter who the victims were.
During so-called biblical times, even children who had passed through the birth canal were not guaranteed absolution from the wrath of those who had grievances against the children's parents, as recorded in Pslams 137:9 "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
Again, we pretty much universally agree that such a sentiment, under any circumstances, is abhorrent even if it's not yet the aberration we'd like it to be in very distressed pockets of the globe.
Anyway, in our 21st century Western society, there are plenty of people who, because of their religion or personal philosophy, are led to view the termination of a first trimester pregnancy as the killing of an unborn child. You'e one of those people, obviously. Of course, neither you nor yours ever has to be burdened with exercising the decision to have an abortion under our present system of laws in the U.S. Of course, there are also plenty of others in our society (me, for instance) who do not agree with your view that a non-viable, first trimester embryo or fetus is a child. As such, this is a matter of personal conscience as opposed to an example of what could be termed our collective morality.
As for the example you provided regarding exorbitant taxes, that also goes nowhere as an example of our evolving collective moral values. Complaining about high taxes has pretty much been a constant throughout the history of taxation.
And I would argue that the open debate regarding the merits of capital punishment, which was begun only in fairly recent times, represents progress. Throughout much of human history, the aplication of capital punishment for certain crimes was a given. I'm aware that this is perceived as moral degeneration to you, because your support of capital punishment is absolute. I'm not that strident on the topic and neither are a lot of other people. Regardless, we still have capital punishment in the U.S., and those of us who can avail themselves to an examination of the practice welcome the opportunity we have today to do so. Progress.
Quote:
Xans wrote
You first. Tell me how you ascertain whether a given behavior is morally sound or not. As far as you need to be concerned I'm amoral.
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I think I already told you that empathy, combined with our innate sense fairness, is a reasonable, if imperfect, guides in the endeavor to enlighten our moral perspectives. As for your alleged amorality, how could you claim to be amoral and simultaneously make moral judgments, which you do here, plenty? In fact, you're rather quick to slam other people's moral values instead of mounting a vigorous intellectual defense of your own. The fact that I (and most others here) may not agree with your personal morality does not mean that you don't have personal moral values.
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Xans wrote
The main point of being a Christian is that you accept Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross for you. And that because of Jesus' sacrafice you can be forgiven of your sin by God. And because you can be forgiven of your sin, you can have eternal life with God in heaven, if you choose to. If leading a moral and just life was the main point of Christianity, Jesus would not have had to die on the Cross.
You can lead the most "immoral" life and still go to heaven if you repent. You can be the "most moral" person on earth and still go to hell. Don't you think the one thing that effects whether or not you go to heaven or hell is the main point of Christianity? The main symbol of Christianity, the Cross, isn't about "morality".
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I've heard this argument before from other Christians, but it doesn't exactly hold up to scrutiny. If you really believed this, you guys wouldn't spend so much time judging others (including other Christians) for what you perceive as their immoral behavior. If it was all about humbling one's self before Jesus, Ted Haggard, for instance, could have done his mea culpas, asked Jesus to forgive his sins and go back to helming the church he founded three decades ago. But that ain't the way it went down when he got caught.
Yeah, I recognize that the main point of this argument you offered above is to convey that otherwise morally unobjectional and even admirably behaved non-Christians are undeserving of heaven, unless they repent and enter the fold. However, I think it is very significant that perceived misbehaving Christians don't escape the moral judgments of their fellow Christians here on Earth. And I have to ask why, if they truly believe that a Jesus has already forgiven these trangressors their sins?
Quote:
Xans wrote
We're all sinners according to the Bible. A humble person will admit they're a sinner and ask God to forgive them. An arrogant person devotes their life to morality and thus feels no obligation to admit anything of their sin.
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No, the arrogant person is one who would presume to judge all of humanity based on his unfounded faith. Your Bible has as much to do with me as the Qu'ran has to do with you. I'm sure you would bristle mightly if a Muslim intimated that you ought to humble yourself before his god and seek his god's forgiveness. Would that make you arrogant?
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Xans wrote
I doubt that "our understanding" of morality has ever been "enlightened". The word is as bad now as it was ages ago. Its as good as it was ages ago. The only difference is that now, in some places, we have more toys making our life easier and more entertaining. That and the fact we have the fear of nuclear weapons keeping the peace more so then would normally be the case. Do you actually think anything has changed in the world as a whole? There is still slavery. There is still racism and ethnic division. There is still war. There is still crime and murder. There are still pirates even. There are still poor people even in socialist countries. There is still disease and intolerance and people fighting and arguing with each other. There is still hate and it's never going away. It never has and it never will. If you think our society is so "enlightened" now, so cool with all our iphones and cheap Chinese made furniture, just you wait and see it all slide back into the shit like it always does. Only this time, the nukes will probably kill us all. Today's "western" society is just a blip on the radar of history.
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I never made an argument that there has been a change in human nature since so-called biblical times. Yes, human nature still allows for us to commit atrocities and lesser acts of bad behavior. But I'm not talking about human nature, per se. That's an entirely separate issue from what we collectively tolerate as morally correct. Earlier in your post, you commented on my observation that, universally in the Western world, we recognize slavery as an evil, and you noted that slavery still exists in the world today. Well, the christ, Jesus of Nazareth, himself, had nothing negative to say about the pervasive system of involuntary servitude in his time, according to the Bible. As recorded in Ephesians 6:5, he tacitly endorsed the institution and counseled slaves against resisting their bondage: "Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ."
Such advice would be anathema to most in our society today. Unlike Jesus, many of us would speak out against slavery. To me, that's a clear demonstration of how our moral values have evolved.
"So many gods, so many creeds! So many paths that wind and wind, when just the art of being kind is all this sad world needs."
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Last edited by Irreligious; 08-07-2010 at 01:02 AM.
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08-07-2010, 01:47 AM
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#143
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I Live Here
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Around the way
Posts: 12,641
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Quote:
Xans wrote
I'm like an atheist at church when I come here and see atheists discussing morality. You'll have to forgive me.
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How many atheists are you aware of at your church? How many of them speak openly there?
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Xans wrote
What you need to give me is a reason to pursue a guide for moral behavior. Why do we need morality?
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We need to pursue a guide for agreed-upon moral behaviors, basically, to avoid my running roughshod over you and your running roughshod over me. Need I be any more didactic than that? I hope not, because I really do think you know the answer to your own question.
Quote:
Xans wrote
It's not enough justification for me.
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You don't elaborate, but is it safe for me to assume that you think it's wrong for the same reasons that I think it is wrong to blame an entire group of people for the transgressions of a relatively small subset of individuals within that particular group? If I can make that assumption, then it would be an example of a shared value between us.
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Xans wrote
I do not disagree.
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Great.
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Xans wrote
I'll try and be more precise in the future. Atheists lack a belief in God(s).
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True. That's the only reasonable definition of an atheist. Of course, it doesn't mean that, individually, we can't be assholes with abhorrent values and points of view, or that, as individuals, two or 2,000 or 2 million of us can't share similar views and ideals, good, bad or indifferent. But the only indisputable thing that binds all atheists is our professed lack of a belief in a god or gods.
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Xans wrote
Might makes right. The more I've thought about it, the more it holds absolutely true. And I don't mean might "is" right. I mean might "makes" right.
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That's true if the mighty have that kind of power. But there's always somebody somewhere who is going to be compelled to challenge a tyrant, even if they have die trying. Tyrants know that, which is why they are never benevolent. They're implaccablly in charge for awhile-- maybe a long while-- and what they say goes. But they still gotta always be watching their backs, because all an earnest challenger needs is time and the opportunity to spoil a tyrant's delusion that he/she is, in fact, right.
Quote:
Xans wrote
Whim, what else ought it be based on?
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You'd have to be a virtual tyrant to get away with that, and I don't think you're nearly that powerful. Is it possible you just don't want to examine the principles upon which your own morality is based?
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Xans wrote
I'm glad to have been mistaken. If no atheist here says killing in self defense is murder but with circumstances that are mitigating then it's good.
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As I said, prohibitions against killing in self-defense are not a part of any alleged atheist rule book. Obversely, Christians are not enjoined from being what you and I might term "extreme pacifism," either. Wherever one stands on the issue, those are "personal values."
I'm assuming that means you're curious about what we think (individually) and why we think it. Hmm. I gotta say, that's not always apparent.
"So many gods, so many creeds! So many paths that wind and wind, when just the art of being kind is all this sad world needs."
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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08-08-2010, 07:45 AM
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#144
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 1,279
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Quote:
Irreligious wrote
How many atheists are you aware of at your church? How many of them speak openly there?
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I don't currently attend Church regularly or have a Church so I wouldn't know.
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We need to pursue a guide for agreed-upon moral behaviors, basically, to avoid my running roughshod over you and your running roughshod over me. Need I be any more didactic than that? I hope not, because I really do think you know the answer to your own question.
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So we need to pursue a guide for an "agreed-upon" moral code, not just a moral code for yourself. I wasn't clear on this before. If this is the case though, do you pursue a moral code that theists would also agree with you on? Do you comprimise on your morals in the endevor to persue an "agreed-upon" morality?
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08-08-2010, 08:05 AM
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#145
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 1,279
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Quote:
Sternwallow wrote
By knowing with absolute certainty that God existed and decreed a set of absolute morals, certainty that is unavailable to us, Satan could not, in any intelligent way, set up his own set.
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Are you saying Satan lacked the creativity to come up with his own morals? Where is that written?
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Humans who act immorally with respect to the prevailing morals of their society can concoct their own because those of their society are not absolute or divine edicts. In other words, we can find excuses for our immorality but Satan can't.
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Nonsense
Absolute and/or divine edicts aren't "worth the paper they're printed on" if Satan chooses not to agree with them.
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Obedience was exactly what God demanded since breaking it was why Satan was punished. Satan must consider himself immoral with respect to the only morals that he knows are true and comprehensive, God's.
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I think your lack of respect for Satan's creativity could bite you in the ass. Good thing it's just a story eh?
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Satan worshippers are not really authorities on Satan just as few Christians are theologians and there are only a tiny few Satan worshippers (Satanists do not worship Satan, for example).
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Are you an authority on Satan? How do you know all the abilities Satan lacks? Is it written someplace that Satan can't be creative? Humans can be creative, Satan is weaker than us? That seems like nonsense to me.
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You go to war because a bunch of old men want something that they think can only be achieved by warfare and they would rather that you fight and bleed and die than that they do it themselves.
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That sounds like a lot of wars to me. It's very unfortuante and sucks ass.
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08-08-2010, 08:08 AM
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#146
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 4,260
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Quote:
Irreligious wrote
We need to pursue a guide for agreed-upon moral behaviors, basically, to avoid my running roughshod over you and your running roughshod over me.
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If we set up our laws to maximize individual liberty (a position which takes no moral position itself), then arguably we don't need to establish a common morality.
"When science was in its infancy, religion tried to strangle it in its cradle." - Robert G. Ingersoll
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08-08-2010, 08:09 AM
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#147
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Obsessed Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 1,279
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Quote:
Sternwallow wrote
My position is that killing a human is murder and sometimes murder is justified (as determined by society).
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Sternwallow is the type of atheist I was talking about that claims killing a human, even in self defense, is murder. He adds "sometimes murder is justified", but I see no reason to accept the fact any murder can be justified. Why even call it "murder" if it's justified?
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08-08-2010, 09:19 AM
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#148
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 20,925
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Quote:
Xans wrote
Sternwallow is the type of atheist I was talking about that claims killing a human, even in self defense, is murder. He adds "sometimes murder is justified", but I see no reason to accept the fact any murder can be justified. Why even call it "murder" if it's justified?
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Xans is a dishonest turd, who has developed a filthy habit of trying to twist facts to fit his perverse world view. What is with his violent obsession with bashing in other monkeys' heads? He wants to exert more energy into defining what good monkey head bashing is instead of trying to stop monkeys from bashing in each others' heads. Give that chimp a banana!
Ponder this while you make poo pancakes.
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-08-2010, 09:24 AM
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#149
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I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 20,925
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Quote:
Sternwallow wrote
By knowing with absolute certainty that God existed and decreed a set of absolute morals, certainty that is unavailable to us, Satan could not, in any intelligent way, set up his own set.
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Quote:
Xans wrote
Are you saying Satan lacked the creativity to come up with his own morals? Where is that written?
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Anybody want to bother explaining to the angry, stupid guy what absolute means?
The Leprechauns do not forbid the drawing of Their images, as long as we color within the lines. ~ Ghoulslime H Christ, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Masturbator
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08-08-2010, 09:35 AM
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#150
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I Live Here
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 23,211
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Quote:
Xans wrote
Are you saying Satan lacked the creativity to come up with his own morals? Where is that written?
Nonsense
Absolute and/or divine edicts aren't "worth the paper they're printed on" if Satan chooses not to agree with them.
I think your lack of respect for Satan's creativity could bite you in the ass. Good thing it's just a story eh?
Are you an authority on Satan? How do you know all the abilities Satan lacks? Is it written someplace that Satan can't be creative? Humans can be creative, Satan is weaker than us? That seems like nonsense to me.
That sounds like a lot of wars to me. It's very unfortuante and sucks ass.
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According to the damned book, Satan has plenty of creativity and intelligence. Enough, for example, to dream up the cosmically ridiculous notion of trying to tempt God by offering Him a few trinkets that He already owns. It is as if I said to you "I will give you thin slice off the tip of one of your shoelaces if you will take off all your clothes and jump into a vat of pig dung and acid in front of a live studio audience." How tempted would you be?
Sure Satan could concoct a set of personal morals, like it is OK to torment people until they are forced to disobey God. Satan, unlike mankind, would know for a certainty that his made-up morals were not the ones in effect, the ones by which he would be judged.
Except for God's absolute morals, which we cannot surely know, the only morals in effect are those of our society, that is, implicitly agreed to by people who want to be members of that society. These are the morals under which we will be judged. If they happen to agree with the essentially unknowable absolute ones, it is a happy coincidence.
Society's main options to treat immoral behavior are to segregate the transgressor (possibly by killing him), that is incarceration or it may expel him from the society (banishment). Banishment used to be nearly equivalent to execution.
Satan could not be killed or cease to exist because God has not the power to do it. So Satan was banished, with all of his powers intact and along with all of his followers, to regions where God did not exist (isn't God omnipresent?). Satan retains a great deal of power over God, enough to steal from God an estimated 3/4 of all the souls (as reported in the damned book) that God would ever create.
The loss of even one soul marks God's impotence against Satan. In this colossal tug-of-war, Satan is destined to win better than a tie by some 25%!
So Satan must not think that any morals he made up have any meaning whatsoever. He must know that disobedience is immoral (if it is).
"Those who most loudly proclaim their honesty are least likely to possess it."
"Atheism: rejecting all absurdity." S.H.
"Reality, the God alternative"
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