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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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I would also consider purposefully drowning little children in flood waters to be torture as well as having them mauled by a bear.
@CyberLN: I would also consider purposefully drowning little children in flood waters to be torture
Sunday school is also a form of torture.
I have heard, though, from a number of friends that the bible summer camps they were sent to as teens were where they first got laid, smoked pot, and got drunk....so, all in all, not torture. ;)
Algebe: "Sunday school is also a form of torture."
At least it was for me, considering how many ass-whoopings I got from the Pastors for asking a legitimate question those Christian heathens either had no answer for or were too pissed off because they could not answer.
rmfr
Jesus, I mean I hated that BS, but they never beat us thank fuck. I think my dad would have kicked the shit out of them. He had no time for religion, it was mother who wanted us raised as god botherers. My brother went to a catholic comprehensive, that's high school to you guys. The nuns were violent, slap happy bitches according to my brother, he was 11 to 12 years old when he started and scared of them until he left at 16.
And it does not help to be going to "Sunday school" in a state that literally and actually had LAWS saying it was completely OK to use corporal punishment (physical abuse) to deal with "disruptive" students. Until about the late 70s to early 80s, North Carolina had such laws. And the principals (Pastors) were the ones who determined if a student was "disruptive." That is another reason I say religion is evil since it condones the beating of children to make them proper Christians. Thankfully, those laws are now repealed. I just wished they had been about 20 years earlier.
rmfr
This thread has received over 300 posts and has been going for several days. I wonder how long an atheist version of AJ777 would have lasted on a Christian website before being locked out.
Atheists are willing to listen, engage, and argue with theists in fair and open debate. I'm proud of us.
"This thread has received over 300 posts and has been going for several days. I wonder how long an atheist version of AJ777 would have lasted on a Christian website before being locked out. Atheists are willing to listen, engage, and argue with theists in fair and open debate. I'm proud of us."
Well said Algebe, very well said.
The idea of pain, torture, and murder, being argued to be wrong by those who believe in no objective truth or morality is nonsensical. Only if objective morality exists can these claims be taken seriously. Atheists want it both ways, to claim God is evil, but He doesn’t exist and neither does the concept of evil. Are there any honest folks about who can see the forest?
AJ777, you wrote, “The idea of pain, torture, and murder, being argued to be wrong by those who believe in no objective truth or morality is nonsensical. Only if objective morality exists can these claims be taken seriously.”
It is quite apparent that you really, really, really have a need to believe this. However, you’ve yet to demonstrate the existence of objective morality.
And, btw, what in the wide, wide world of sports is objective truth?
Do you think endless repetition and preaching will sway us? Your shameful evasion speaks volumes about your lack of integrity as well.
If you have any integrity at all why are you refusing to answer any questions?
@AJ777
"Why in your opinion is it not morally acceptable to torture children?
If as you claim torturing children is an objectively immoral act, why according to the bible did your deity torture King David's new born baby to death?
Is slavery ever morally acceptable? If not why does the bible condone it repeatedly, including Jesus entreating slaves to obey their masters, even the cruel ones?
As if we didn't know.
@AJ777: Atheists want it both ways, to claim God is evil, but He doesn’t exist and neither does the concept of evil.
The god that atheists claim to be evil is the fictional character portrayed in the Bible. That evil has been brought into the real world by the misguided followers of that fantastical monster.
As I and others have said, our sense of morality and our knowledge of good and evil come from our instincts as social primates, refined by our experiences in our families and society. That morality is objective to the extent that our families and society exist outside of ourselves as well as encompassing us. Each member of a society is a tree. Their collective attitudes to morality are the forest that we live in. Can you see the forest? Honestly?
There is a clear process for forming this kind of morality. What processes exist for transmitting morality from your lawgiver to humanity? If they exist, why aren't they universal? As far as I can see, there's a collection of mistranslated, misinterpreted, politically selected books recording hearsay accounts by unknown writers about revelations (hallucinations?) experienced by characters who are mostly fictional.
AJ777,
"The idea of pain, torture, and murder, being argued to be wrong by those who believe in no objective truth or morality is nonsensical."
According to the biblical fairy tale the God character beats the hell out of those he loves. Have you been beaten lately? And the Jesus character won't return until a magic number of believers have been killed. Don't you want Jesus to return?
I've already said that I don't believe evil exists.
You seem to think that my subjective experience of pain and harm is of no value whatsoever, even though my experience is of absolute importance to me.
Your problem is that you treat the individual as being of no consequence, thus you are unable to recognize that acts that minimize harm are good in themselves, and acts that maximize harm are bad in themselves.
I believe that torture is wrong, whereas you believe it is acceptable. Clearly therefore there is no objective morality.
I have to believe you smoked the entire forest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuYeQi4wB_k
"The idea of pain, torture, and murder, being argued to be wrong by those who believe in no objective truth or morality is nonsensical."
No it isn't - Hitchens razor applied.
"Only if objective morality exists can these claims be taken seriously. "
Rubbish - Hitchens's razor applied.
"Atheists want it both ways, to claim God is evil, but He doesn’t exist and neither does the concept of evil. "
No we don't, and evil is a concept so just like Harry Potter has evil characters so can the fictional bible. Atheists don't believe a deity exists because you can demonstrate no evidence for one, but this doesn't change the fact that the biblical fairy tales about a deity represent the concept of evil again and again.
You god botherers make me laugh, you're so in denial it isn't funny.
The idea of pain, torture and murder being argued to be wrong by those who believe in the murderous, torturous, infanticidal, raping Christian God is FUCKING INSANE! The only thing being nonsensical around here is the inane absurdity of your comments.
Well tying young Isaac up, placing him on top of a sacrificial pyre, and drawing a knife to eviscerate him at god's command sounds like torture to me. Only holding back at the very last when god was satisfied his slave Abraham would happily murder his own child if told to.
How's that for objective morality from both theist slave and his deity, bot happy to torture children?
Like AJ777 who claims it's wrong to torture children, but when asked can't offer a single word to explain why.
@AJ777 would you murder a child if your deity told you to? Is it ever objectively moral to murder a child? Your OPINION on what is moral seems at odds with your deity according to the bible.
The correspondence view of truth is it is that which corresponds to reality. The statement “objective truth does not exist”, is itself an objective truth claim, and self defeating. Some societies love their neighbors, others kill them, others eat them. Which society is right. Sheldon, you’re right sir, Isaac was not killed. Why would it be wrong if he was though?
@AJ777: Some societies love their neighbors, others kill them, others eat them. Which society is right.
The ones that kill and eat their neighbors tend to be those that believe in absolute, unchanging and ancient truth from supernatural lawgivers. When societies with different versions of these lawgivers rub up against each other, they start to see that their absolutes are in fact quite relative. That's how we move forward toward a more humane way of living.
Have you ever heard this quote by Charles Napier on differences between British and Indian customs?
"This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property."
Denying that "Objective truth" exists is distinct from denying that "Objective morality" exists.
How so?
Some might argue that there are objective truths such as 1+1=2 (in the decimal numeral system), or that the interior angles of an Euclidian triangle always adds up to 180 degrees. Although others may contend that these are just matters of definition rather than objective truths about the world. If so, perhaps nothing can be known to be objectively true.
As for morals...that is purely a matter of taste, subject to each individual.
edit: missed word
Why do you assign truth to abstract objects like numbers, but believe it cannot be assigned to an abstract like morality?
My point is that numbers, when defined, are true by definition: this does not mean they exist in reality.
If you define murder as the killing of a person contrary to the law, you have simply given a definition, not shown it to be objectively immoral.
Both numbers and morality are abstract concepts. If morality is subjective, then why is math not subjective?
I didn't say that math is not subjective.
This is an argument over the meaning of words rather than the nature of reality.
We may believe we are talking about the same thing, but we cannot be absolutely certain, as we are not infallible.
You believe that objective morality exists, and that is acceptable to torture people for not agreeing with your view of reality. For me, to torture someone for not being infallible is especially immoral. You seem to be saying that people are able to know things, rather than believe in them.
So you believe math is subjective, 2+2=19 is true for me then. Amazing the lengths one has to go to to justify an irrational worldview. I’ll go to the npbank tomorrow and withdraw 2 billion dollars from my account, I’m sure the bank teller will comply when I tell her math is subjective. This clearly does not correspond with reality, and therefore is absolutely untrue. Those in hell are tormented due to their own self choice to deny the reality that God exists and their purpose in life is to love and be loved by Him.
I didn't say math is subjective.
This is an argument over the meaning of words rather than the nature of reality.
We may believe we are talking about the same thing, but we cannot be absolutely certain, as we are not infallible.
You can define a thing in as many ways as you like, but you cannot change the nature of the thing simply by defining it. You cannot make people change the nature of a thing merely by telling them your definition of it.
So if you can’t change the nature of a thing, you affirm the absolute truth of the things identity or nature. So it follows truth is objective. Or is that false? You said “I didn’t say that math is not subjective”. We’re you meaning your opinion math is objective then?
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