As does everyone, definitely. I’m asking that if there is no consequence, why do people still hold to a moral code? There are definitely social consequences to having no morals, but is that the only reason people still hold to them?
God gives us great moral examples to live by! We should ALL share in God’s moral examples:
God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there.
He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3).
He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6).
In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife!
In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church!
In total God kills hundred of thousands of people directly and orders over a million other people murdered. God allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).
Looks to me like mankind has learned God’s moral lessons very well. Just look at all the murders, theft, carnage and sex crimes!
Thanks God, for giving mankind such great examples of morality.
@Rot
God knows. It’s like asking JFK why he decided to go to the moon. “Because we can,” would be the answer prolly.
There’s nothing stopping someone from becoming “evil.” Though evil has different meanings to you and I. Morals change with society, yes they have deep spiritual meanings, but over all, they’re subjective to the place you were raised, the people you associate yourself with, and consequently the society you live in. If the zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, how would you handle the situation? You can’t stick to your own moral compass as you know it in that situation or else you’ll die. What would you do if you were stuck in a situation like TWD’s last episode?
Spoiler:
The kid goes insane and shoots her sister. What would you have done in that situation? Disposed of her? Tried to nurse her damaged mind?
Once that happened I would have disposed of her on the spot, she was a liability at that point. A child she may be, but she killed someone in cold blood and was obviously cracked in more than one place.
Ordinarily I would have tried to help her, but that’s in normal society.
Routing back to the original topic; morals are subjective to each and every person, and consequently to the social order of things. If that social structure didn’t exist, you’d have complete anarchy.
Frankly, young children are likely the most dangerous people and the most likely to kill in cold blood in that kind of situation because they don’t know any better. They haven’t developed a moral compass at that point in their lives.
Chicken, I was responding to Rot, not to you 
I haven’t really see you say much that I disagree with here 
About morals; morals are a product of evolution just as much as our eyes and feet and our brains. Any animal that lives in a social group has a set of morals, as complex as the group. Without morals, animals can’t live together, as they’re basically a set of rules that allow long term cooperation between individuals and their offspring.
Morals also change all the time. In the case of humans, they are heavily influenced by culture. Which is fine, because every society has its own particular problems and dangers which morality protects against.
The problem I see in taking your morals from a god or a book or some other authority, is that your morals become absolute, because they’re effectively rules set on you from above; while in reality, nothing is absolute, everything is fluid and contextual.
Personally, I have an extremely strong sense of morality, of what’s right and wrong, I’m very empathic. In my experience, most conflict comes either from a lack of communication, or people setting absolute principles and morals, when nuance and reciprocation are almost always in order.
It’s the great weakness of our species. Our language only allows us to talk about absolutes, so any truth spoken requires the right combination of mutual dishonesty which most accurately approaches the truth.
Consider this - in Middle Earth, is it wrong to absolutely hate orcs for what they are and call for their absolute destruction? Now replace those orcs with “black people” or “jews”, or even “chimpanzees”, or cows or mosquitoes. Different world, different society, different morals.
At the young children thing. I’m not so sure about that. Some things are hardwired into our brains. Killing a human being is one of those things which is, generally speaking, completely contrary to how we’re programmed. Of course there are many ways to kill that reduce the sense of agency and thus bypass that programming, and children are probably the most naive in that regard.
This being a matter of God is God, I think. God does what he wants, if God created the world and everything in it, he holds the right do do what he wants with it. God cannot sin, because sin is “going against the will of God”.
God’s purpose in creating people was to have them be in communion with him, these people that have been killed followed false gods. Again, God does what he will, if he demonstrates his power over false gods by wiping an opposing nation out, that’s his business.
Same deal as above, I think.
“10 So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. 11 “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin.””
Never once is it mentioned in this chapter that God had anything to do with this, if you read carefully, you will see that this is the assembly of people and the elders who come to this conclusion.
“20 So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards 21 and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin.”
Again, this is the elders, and not God saying these things. Interestingly enough, they decided to steal these women FROM a “festival of the LORD”.
I think it’s starting to become apparent that God doesn’t like other gods much. Also ties into the whole “Follow me and live where I live, or don’t, but don’t expect all the nice things I’ve created” part of the heaven/hell dilemma.
I’ve read Exodus 21:1-11 in a couple different versions, and nowhere does it say the daughter is to be a “sex slave”. It says that if the man is to marry someone he is not to deny his maidservant food or clothing. Nowhere that I have read says that she was to have sexual relations with him.
As for Judges 11:29-40, Jephthah made a pretty stupid oath. God did not tell him to make a child sacrifice, The bible states in a few places that God finds human sacrifice detestable. Jephthah makes the vow to sacrifice the first thing that he meets on his return home, do you think God is going to be strong-armed into doing anything just to prevent people from sinning?
Hosea 13:16, God did not order the dashing of babies, he allowed it because his people turned away from him.
EDIT: Chicken and Bur, I just read your guys’ posts and I like them, I’ll reply later, I’ve got stuff to do here, given me some neat stuff to think about. 
Please do not throw Tikitapas around. They are a lovingly prepared appetizer which deserve to be eaten and enjoyed, not turned into projectiles.
How is that theoretical question any worse than asking about the required elimination of a species?
My class section has a stock-question which we ask our new instructors:
“If you had to get rid of either all the cows or all the chickens, which would it be and why?”
[COLOR=‘Gray’](So far, there is consensus that losing beef and dairy is slightly more horrible than losing eggs and poultry.)
Sorry that I’m getting back at this and I will only this one time and then leave it at that and don’t bother anyone anymore, but there are still fundamental misunderstandings I fear.
Regarding 1)
It’s correct if you apply one form of definition of “species” that isn’t, like I already put, entirely flawless. Some even see the phylogenetic classification outdated, in many cases it’s difficult to draw a clear line between species or subspecies “burquote: everything is fluid”
That kind of example is a bit lacking. Maybe it would matter, maybe it wouldn’t. First of all, you’re talking about clones, which humans aren’t, so you’re changing the parameters. Second, you don’t know the other parameters: While you could decide to kill the red shirt group and that leaves you with fewer in numbers, it might be that they thrive and create an equal number after some time, maybe even some who like red shirts more and create them and become again the biggest group. It might be that if you kill off just the ten blue shirts that the others don’t have reproductive success due to some other reason (might be they all don’t look good enough, because the killed blues were the ladies favorite color). That’s all a bit of a stretch, but in the end what matters and what I wanted to get it is this: it is bad and counterproductive (even if it might or might not be evenly) regardless which group you’re talking about.
No, that’s one of the most basic misconceptions in Evolution, the “strong” survive. How do you define strong ? It’s not like it’s an active process and the “strong” are snuffing out the “weak”. It’s about those, that can adapt to a certain environmental condition at the given time, that thrive. Let’s take a grizzly and a salmon for example. The one is obviously higher in the food chain and “stronger”. So how come we don’t have a world today in which only grizzlies, but no salmon are living ? “Stupid yrr”, you might think, “there are other food sources, maybe predators of bears and various other conditions that prevent the salmons from dying out.” Yep, you got me there. Consider only grizzlies and salmons exist in the world, at the end one would cease to exist and also rob the “stronger” species of their food source, they would have killed themselves, so to speak. Or you could have a change of environmental condition: The temperature rises, ice is melting and flooding the whole surface, grizzlies die out, salmons are happy, but overpopulate and also die out. There is no “strengthening” of the species, there is only a response to changing environmental conditions that is: adapt, or die out. And by adapting, you give up some other traits, that were maybe favorable for other conditions. Nature isn’t black and white, isn’t like the branch of the road where you only have left and right. No, you also have the middle which leads through the woods, it’s more like a net where all things are interwoven. Like I already said, there is no “perfect” species at the end of Evolution. It’s more like a trial and error run for an operating system that constantly changes it’s values, with no end of beta phase or to see the light of release, if you will
Under such circumstances, genocide may be or may be not counterproductive as in: It did so much damage that a certain species died out or it didn’t. But it will in no way ever “contribute” to traits of the species and as such, is totally unnecessary, aside from the rotten morale and everything else.
A fitting quote from one of my favorite animes (and movies) ever (albeit in another synchro, sorry but the english one sucks IMO):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyqGdQEvTHI
For what else than overspecialization would it be to cull the weak out in favor for the “strong” onese ?
I’m not touching “book-talk” (bible) with a mile-long pole… it’s a touchy subject with me, and I refuse to read the bible for my own reasons.
It stemmed from my statement about some Europeans having an immunity to HIV. 
My apologies.
Pretty much everything you pointed out I agree with.
I’m going to disagree with you here. Our language allows us to talk about hypothetical situations as well, which we’re doing at the moment, so no. It’s not always absolute.
If the person is unsure about what they’re doing, they could be steered from the path that they’re on.
I’d love to see mosquitoes exterminated from the earth. The incessant buzzing annoys the living fuck out of me when I try to sunbathe during the summer.
In all seriousness, from an environmental standpoint, no I don’t want them exterminated they’re a staple in the diet of any native animals where I live.
Beyond that, Orcs and middle earth:
That’s subjective. From what I remember from the movies and the books, most of if not all of them are “evil” at heart and want nothing but the destruction or enslavement of the other races, so I see little reason to try to allow them to survive.
If you’ve watched Stargate Atlantis, the Wraith would be a better comparison. Before they start feeding on a human’s life force (e.g. before puberty), they have a fully active digestive system and the like and could survive on regular food if their genetic qualities were changed in some way to allow it to remain active through adult hood.
Back to the original point: Would I promote the genocide of an entire species? No.
I hadn’t considered that. It does make sense, however.
When you’re describing hypothetical situation, you’re still using absolute terms to try to describe something in between. Point is, language isn’t perfect, it’s impossible to be absolutely truthful, or absolutely accurate.
Even mathematics aren’t perfect
My point with the orcs was, in some situations, one thing might be considered morally acceptable, while in other situations it might not. It depends on the context.
There are things that are objectively wrong that have evolved over time with us as a species. Namely: the golden rule. This is something that we as a species arrived at over the millennia and it’s a pretty good moral belief system. It seems to have evolved in other animals of a social nature as well.
Harming others of the same social species as us is objectively wrong because it harms us as a species.
Again, that’s for us as a species. The universe itself couldn’t possibly care less about its ephemeral inhabitants. And the word “meaning” is something that we invented for ourselves. This isn’t something that’s objective or tangible. But we’re doing fairly well for ourselves, for a creature that has existed for an unbelievably brief period of time (compared to the universe).
Okay, I’m pretty tired so I’m going to cut this down the the bare minimum of things to reply to.
@Bur/DanielSangeo/Chicken regarding morals: I can accept that explanation, and it makes sense. I hadn’t considered that.
@Yrr: My hypothetical scenario involving clones was for the purpose of having nothing different among them save for numbers alone. as it was said that the difference between race was completely superficial. The original point I was making was that statistically you would be worse off committing genocide against a majority rather than a minority. either for the reasons of the majority having done something “right” to have flourished in such a way, or in the case of racial differences being superficial, simply for sheer numbers. You cannot tell me that in the case of complete equality less numbers (chances at survival) would have the same, er… chances of survival… as more?
I feel like we may have reached the point where we are both arguing two completely different points.
Wait, are you saying that the the golden rule is objectively wrong?
That’s part of the reason why I’m religious. It may seem wimpy, but I’m not sure I can handle a worldview that lacks any sort of meaning or greater purpose.
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant to say that you can tell what things are objectively wrong through the use of the golden rule.
I’m fine with you having a religious view if you can’t handle a worldview where there lacks any external “greater purpose” or “sort of meaning”. I feel that’s the kind of thing we invent for ourselves, whether through it’s inventing a religion or otherwise.
A universe without meaning is actually really liberating to me. It means you don’t have to live up to unrealistic standards, and that everyone and everything alive is inherently equal.
It gives your life back to you. It’s your life, it doesn’t belong to god or some ephemeral purpose which is unknowable anyway.
It means there’s no authority or higher power or purpose you need to submit to simply because you exist.
We have about 80 short years, if we’re very lucky, to experience a tiny, but nonetheless beautiful and awesome fraction of this thing we call existence.
I find the presence of consciousness and organization in all the chaos and complexity all the more fascinating and wonderful for the lack of a higher power.
There is no reason, but it still exists! And moreover, we can understand most of it, eventually. We can actually observe and experience and interact with a world that is way more complex than anything we can imagine - yet it could not but exist, because what would non-existence be like? Who or what would be there to experience it, to describe it? Who or what would be there to share the experience with?
I believe consciousness and existence are essentially the same thing. Even if something exists without consciousness, it might as well not; there’s nothing to value it, to experience it, to suffer in it.
If there is any meaning to life, that would be it: to experience as much as you can, and to share your experience as much as you can. There is essentially no other value to life - and that’s wonderful! Isn’t it enough that you even exist at all to do these things?
I find life and existence fascinating because of the lack of purpose. It’s all completely random, entirely circumstantial, and essentially valueless and devoid of any sort of morality - yet it is filled with life, love and unity. To me, that’s beautiful. That’s inspiring.
Senseless violence is a lot less destructive than violence used as a means to an end. Senseless love is a lot more beautiful than love through coercion.
In my experience (which is of course limited to the time and space I have so far occupied), religion is something that breaks people’s ego and empowerment through guilt and shame. I see it in the streak of guilt and shame that runs through my family to this day, I see it every time someone begs god for forgiveness.
(Although of course I realize not all of religion is like that, and that certainly not every religious person experiences it as such).
If there is anything that I would call “god”, it’s me. You. Everyone. You create your own universe through your experiences and perceptions and the way you organize them into a model of reality that is continually adjusted and updated with every single experience or perception.
On top of that, we can exchange those experiences and perceptions with other consciousness, creating a consensus reality; a little part of existence which is the same for everyone.
In essence, you create your own meaning, your own purpose. The meaning of my life is love, solidarity, creativity. My purpose is fading the divides between people (and other animals) so we can all start working together instead of eternally competing.
This has turned into a veritable wall-o-text but one last thing, about the shame and guilt, just a random thought:
I’m under the impression that many Americans (or anyone else for that matter, I guess) don’t fully appreciate the devastation institutionalised religion has inflicted on the psyche of many, many regular people in Europe over the centuries. Of course I’m talking about the organized and institutionalised side of the equation here - nothing else.
^first of all, I approve of everything you said (it’s like you’rre thieving my thoughts… or I am thieving yours ?), but I also find the idea of a higher being, a greater purpose in everything soothing and reassuring. Maybe that is really a trait that lies into every human, to create your own “god” to explain things you can’t explain or build your own haven, maybe that’s because I was raised religious (roman catholic, baptized, confirmation, served many years as a altar boy), but my parents were pretty liberal. Let’s say that today I’m in opposition to most dogmas and manners of the institution church, for example, not going frequently to church anymore because I find it useless.
What you described is kinda like Autotheism, or in some form a type of satanism, that believes we humans have also god-like power or status, but are withheld by institutions like the church by surpressing our spiritualism (for example, sex is a form of spiritual fulfilment for those satanists) or by other means. So they try to achieve the enlightenment or the “life-force” through rituals (whether it be some sort of prayer to satan, Tantra or just living your live to the fullest and without regrets). Well, that’s somehow also kinda religious, but just about yourself
I don’t know what you’re getting at with
though.
I guess it does sound like autotheism, but I was using the word “god” more metaphorically. I think “god” is just a word we use to describe this huge eternal philosophical question of the meaning and reason of life and reality and how it came to be.
In the same way, I think “supernatural” is just a catch-all term used to explain something by not explaining it at all.
I was raised with the freedom to make up my own mind. Most of my friends in elementary school took “ethics” (I don’t know if there is a direct translation, it’s the alternative for religious classes), but I took the “religious” classes by my own choice. The teacher was strictly catholic, and I really attended those classes with an open mind.
The question of god is something I thought about frequently when I was little, but by the time I went to high school I wasn’t giving it much thought anymore. You could say I was effectively an indifferent agnostic atheist, looking back.
When I was about 19 I think, I started looking up a lot of things on the internet, watched a lot of youtube videos, and I gave it some serious thought again. Before long I had concluded that I could find no reason to believe in a god of any form. I couldn’t even find a satisfactory definition. I became an “active” agnostic atheist.
I found a lot of science explaining the natural world in a lot of detail and I realized consciously that we don’t need a god or the supernatural to explain anything. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have a lot of them.
Well, my grandmother is deeply catholic. Over the past years she has lost her faith in the Church entirely, but her belief is no less strong, I think. She wanted to become a nun when she was young, but her father didn’t allow it.
Anyway, she really feels a lot of guilt, in the religious sense. She’s almost completely selfless, and it’s very unhealthy for her. Her health has been declining somewhat because she’s so tired of living for other people.
Well, my dad and my oldest aunt, they weren’t raised particularly religiously AFAIK, but they’ve both been struggling with it their whole lives. My aunt believes, I think, but I actually “converted” my dad just by reasoning with him. Nonetheless, by his own admission, the Catholic guilt and shame run to the core of his being, and it’s been passed on to me and, more so, my sister. Even though neither of us have ever really believed in god.
Belgium is historically very Catholic, and I truly believe the mental suppression by the Catholic church has left scars that still haven’t healed. The pedophile scandals have made a lot of new scars, but that’s another matter entirely. Although it is a good example, actually, because in essence it’s the same structure of power and influence that has allowed these things to happen.
People put their complete trust and faith in these priests, look to them for answers; what they get is, or at least used to be, “repent! you are sinful! you must bow to god!”. (that last part was a bit crass)
Edit: every person that believes has their own view and image of god (I think); even in that sense alone you could say every person is their own god, since the god they believe in exists only to themselves.
But you could argue that unattainable standards are preferable; it means you always have some way to improve yourself, and always have a goal to work to.
You don’t need unattainable standards, let alone static and unchanging standards, to improve yourself or to set goals, though.
And you could also argue that unrealistic standards damage self-esteem because nothing will ever be good enough.
Practical example: the image of what a woman should be, or what a man should be, how they should look and act, which is projected through the media, definitely damages people’s self-esteem and self-image.
What we should be striving for aren’t standards, but visions. Standards imply that it’s what should be, rather than what we should strive for. The models on the magazines should be what you should work towards (eat healthier, exercise, don’t dress like a slob), but it shouldn’t be something you necessarily must attain. Standards are something that one should create for themselves, and work towards one’s own abilities to actually achieve something. In short, both of you are right.
I very strongly disagree that the image of models is something anyone should strive to attain. It’s not healthy at all, and what kind of clothes look good is quite subjective.
Anyway, I think what you’re saying is that standards or goals or vision - let’s not argue semantics - should be an ideal to work towards but never truly reach, rather than something to judge eachother and ourselves by.
In which case, I agree What I was trying to get across, though, is that a universe with meaning or purpose burdens everyone with trying to achieve that purpose and live up to that meaning, or otherwise subjugates us to its inevitability. A universe without meaning gives us the freedom to define, shape, and reshape it ourselves, individually or as a society, as you said.
I think I chased away rot and chicken with my wall-o-text rants 
or i’m just spending way too much time here still