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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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Now he is editing his responses about editing.^^
Of course lol. The best writers are those that make revisions. I removed an unnecessary question mark just now. If you spot other issues let me know so I can make improvements.
John, you are without a doubt, the most dishonest person on this forum (imo).
Whose in second place?
John, you wrote, “Users should be encouraged to make edits at their discretion”
Honorable posters here indicate that they are changing a post and what they have changed.
With the exception of punctuation and spelling, the honorable action described above is what ‘should’ be encouraged.
If you wrote a post that did not clearly say what you meant, then be stand up enough to say that instead of just going back and surreptitiously changing it from the original to something new.
I personally attempt to make semantic improvements up until the time a person responds, or within the first couple minutes. I don't think its necessary to indicate a change, unless its important and people have responded.
On my browser threads are labeled as "updated" whenever someone makes a change or a new post is made.
I’m politely asking you to indicate the details of those changes despite your opinion that it’s unnecessary.
I'm going to politely decline. Perhaps you can use your position to improve the site. A feature similar to Facebook's would solve these issues. By that I mean labelling comments as edited when changes are implemented, and allowing other users to see a history of those changes, if they so desire.
"my understanding of the Ten Commandments is that they are the basic, bare minimum expectation for behavior. "
They also predate Christianity by centuries as moral precepts, all except the endless instruction on how the deity wants to be worshipped. What kind of human society doesn't think not murdering and stealing lying is a good rule for it's citizens? I also have to echo Christopher Hitchens here, how stupid is it to even suggest that it hadn't occurred to the Hebrews not to lie, murder and steal until Moses got a set of stone tablets from a fortuitous jaunt into the hills?
I hope so. Given that they were given to Moses and not Christ.
THE MORAL PLANE
Many of you argue that no objective morality exists. Right and wrong are subjective categories. Great.
Pretend we're all in an airplane. The engines explode. We're heading straight to the ground, and will be dead in around 70 seconds.
Given this scenario, how do you object in any meaningful way to a fellow passenger taking those last few seconds to murder the nearest person? Does it make a difference?
Here's a different question if you prefer: Should we have stopped the Holocaust?
Possibly the greatest war in human history was waged to stop the Nazis. Thousands of innocent soldiers were lost in the endeavor... and I can reasonably expect every single holocaust survivors to be dead anyway by the time I'm married. So what was the point? To postpone the inevitable and pretend it makes a difference?
Breezy, interesting but not a good comparison, the last 70 seconds on a doomed aircraft and the entire history of WWII. The biggest problem is that of time.
Stopping a murder less than 70 seconds from total annihilation might be a good way to take your mind off your own immediate personal problems, but what would be the point if everyone is dead in the end.
As an atheist without a belief in either an afterlife or a judgement, the murderer will not be punished and in this annihilation scenario given the physical impossibility for me, who would be out of my head with panic or the murderer, who would have to be stark raving insane, to achieve very much, I just don’t think it would make very much difference.
However the Allies stopped the Axis powers at great human cost, from continuing their global domination and imposing their disastrous political and religious wills on the rest of the world, which would have ensured more warfare, guaranteeing millions more killed or tortured. That made an enormous difference.
To the survivors of the Holocaust, I am sure the intervening 70+ years between WWII and your imminent wedding were also of the greatest importance, what with lives to rebuild and families to re-establish. The war was worth fighting.
Sure, inevitably we are all going to die, but I sure would like another 60-70 years (in rude good health) to avoid the inevitable and to try to make a point or two and a difference where I missed out this first time round.
Cheers.
Right, I am changing time to change the perspective. On a cosmic timeline our 70 years are nothing, if it even reaches a full second.
I'm not sure I understand people's objection with my plane scenario. That is how many moral psychology questions are asked. Take the famous trolley scenario.
Spoken like a true person who understands nothing at all about morality, contemporary definitions of morality, airplanes or the Holocaust. Read some Sam Harris or Matt Dillahaunty on Morality prior to your next post. It really is senseless talking to you.
Don't go to atheists on subjects like these, go to psychologists. Try books by Paul Bloom, Jonathan Haidt, Joshua Green.
You changed this response as well. Earlier it just said, “Dilahunty, hah!”
I think the change improved the quality of the comment, did it not?
No, it completely changed the substance of your response.
Well since you're so much better informed than us atheists, could you know answer my question, do you think it was morally acceptable for your deity to torture a newborn baby to death over 7 days where it suffered greatly, because it was angry that the parents were not married?
As an ill informed duffer of an atheist I'd really appreciate your expertise on morality here?
Has anyone ever been murdered on a plane before it's crashed?
Yeah, the pilot lol
after a catastrophic engine failure/loss of wings?
It's a trick question, moral consequentialism is not a road I'd care to go down. Generally I tend to think these moral dichotomies indicate a persons moral compass is working if they can't see an absolute answer. The fact they're troubled by all possible answers is a good sign.
That is what I thought, I always find that they have to propose something more and more convoluted each time to fit their narrative.
It essentially becomes a complex web of excuses and distortion of facts for the most part.
Its not a trick question. Why are atheists so paranoid? Its a thought experiment, an allegory, a metaphor. I've never seen people object so passionately to the physical possibility of something that literally begins with the word pretend.
Well being a theist your welcome to 'pretend'... it's expected ;)
"do you think it was moral for your God to torture a baby to death because it was angry that the parents were committing adultery, as stated in the ot of the bible?"
the hoops one has to jump through in order to make a theistic point is quite remarkable,
Hey Breezy, any chance you're ever going to answer my question or are you going to hide from it behind pedantry about the thread op?
Is this thread about morals or not? Are you so dishonest you want to question atheists with loaded questions you refuse to answer yourself? Are you so dishonest you refuse to answer questions about biblical claims when they contradict theistic claims for an absolutely moral deity?
If you're this dishonest why should we care what you think about morality?
Now once again I ask, do you think it was moral for your God to torture a baby to death because it was angry that the parents were committing adultery, as stated in the ot of the bible?
It is very clear that morals are subjective, relative and changing. Most people today abhor people killing a child, however, many ancient civilizations killed them to their gods. It was the right thing to do. Most people today feel repulsed if they see someone being burnt to death but the Christian church burned people at stake for quite some time and it was perfectly ok. Kidnap and rape of young women by their to be husbands today is quite normal in several countries while it is severely punished in others... Gays and atheists are killed or imprisoned by the law in some countries. It is the moral thing to do. However, in others, gay people can get married. Taking the property of others by force, torture, slavery, etc have been accepted by many societies for a long time. You can go through all we think is wrong now and almost always you can find some time or society where it is an accepted behavior.
I do not know how people can say that there is an objective and unchanging morality in the face of all these facts.
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