Moral Absolutes

[clicketycrack]

I dont know, i like ot believe that if Hitler has been raped, The Holocaust would not have happened.

Really? I think it would have been the other way around.

 

[UBourgeois]

I dont know, i like ot believe that if Hitler has been raped, The Holocaust would not have happened.

Really? I think it would have been the other way around.

What does that even mean? If Hitler were raped, the Holocaust would happen twice?

 

[Zealot_Guy]

Helping other would always be good. For bad I would have to say Genocide.

I could help someone kill someone else. Am I still good?

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Genocide.

 

[Rylingo]

5: Also true. That is why, as always, I advocate the Dexter approach - find proof. Break into the alleged rapists' home. Search around. Follow him/her.

One of my favourite series. Just finished the second series and the thing keeps getting better.

 

[UBourgeois]

But seriously, as always, I would argue that murder is not always bad.
I personally see no problem with it.
Because I am probably going to hell.

Curious: Do you mean you see no problem with murder period, as in it is never bad to kill another human being, or do you mean you can see situations where it is acceptable.

Just wondering.

 

[Squeaksx]

You realize that this entire thread has gone 4chan on us in a matter of three posts right? I honestly don't think that anything said here will revive it, but just to be relative I'll say that morale absolutes are considered less important then the law of whatever region your in, which is never right or wrong, but just exists.

 

[Rylingo]

The TV show since since i pretty much keep an eye on any american show that gets critically acclaimed.
I can't find the books on sale over here, i may have to look online. Im aware that from the end of S1 the books and TV show take a different arc.

My last post to avoid online spoiler guys!

 

[ExaltedK9]

Personally, I like my own dog's better than alot of people. I'm guessing that there's a label for that by now...

erm, rape, yea totally bad, so is murder. But only in it's truest form, without contradicting myself, when I say purest, I'm saying that killing in self-defense is not murder.

Basically, I think just all of those sins listed in the Bible are bad.

You do realize one of the sins is something like "thou shalt worship no false gods," right?
Or something to that effect?

Personally, I could care less what some old book says about religion. It wasn't even written by anyone famous!

But seriously, as always, I would argue that murder is not always bad.
I personally see no problem with it.
Because I am probably going to hell.

Well yes, I'm pretty sure that thats in there somewhere. And if you don't think Jesus is famous!? urgh, oh I can feel the headache coming on already.

If you don't want to go to hell...ok at the risk of sounding completely morbid, you have to bathe yourself in the blood of jesus Christ. You do need to have Jesus as your savior to get to heaven, but...hell is more for evil people, and you don't really strike me as evil, just....dark.

And like I said, I don't think that killing in self-dafense is murder. But then again, If somebody have assassinated Hitler, then I would shed a tear over it. I can't stand, however, when people bomb, an abortion clinic, or shoot an abprtion doctor, and say that it's "of God" because it's NOT of God.

and with that, I take my leave of this thread.

 

[Agayek]

The way I see it is rather simple, and absolute:

1) The initiation of violence, or any act that interferes with their freedoms, is bad, always.

2) Everything else is good, always.


There's really no shades of gray to be confused over.

 

[thenoblitt]

for bad rape

for good saving a puppy

 

[ExaltedK9]

Personally, I like my own dog's better than alot of people. I'm guessing that there's a label for that by now...

erm, rape, yea totally bad, so is murder. But only in it's truest form, without contradicting myself, when I say purest, I'm saying that killing in self-defense is not murder.

Basically, I think just all of those sins listed in the Bible are bad.

You do realize one of the sins is something like "thou shalt worship no false gods," right?
Or something to that effect?

Personally, I could care less what some old book says about religion. It wasn't even written by anyone famous!

But seriously, as always, I would argue that murder is not always bad.
I personally see no problem with it.
Because I am probably going to hell.

Well yes, I'm pretty sure that thats in there somewhere. And if you don't think Jesus is famous!? urgh, oh I can feel the headache coming on already.

If you don't want to go to hell...ok at the risk of sounding completely morbid, you have to bathe yourself in the blood of jesus Christ. You do need to have Jesus as your savior to get to heaven, but...hell is more for evil people, and you don't really strike me as evil, just....dark.

And like I said, I don't think that killing in self-defense is murder. But then again, If somebody have assassinated Hitler, then I would shed a tear over it. I can't stand, however, when people bomb, an abortion clinic, or shoot an abprtion doctor, and say that it's "of God" because it's NOT of God.

and with that, I take my leave of this thread.

Take your bronze age religion out of the conversation. Even if god exists, he is an authority figure, meaning there is still RELATIVE morals, they are just relative to the authority, IE, god.

Morals are always relative, and therefore absolutes do not exist.

Don't insult me, or my God, dumbass.

I'll come back with a response to this once I have some tollerance, for this bullshit.

 

[UBourgeois]

Rape is not always evil.
It can be shown, using game theory, to be an optimal choice for some individuals in a population who would not otherwise be able to reproduce. In this case, it is almost an essential choice, as it allows potentially fit individuals to contribute to the gene pool when they would not otherwise be able to do so.

But the chances of that happening are virtually nonexistent. It is so unlikely that it doesn't even need to be considered.

Take your bronze age religion out of the conversation. Even if god exists, he is an authority figure, meaning there is still RELATIVE morals, they are just relative to the authority, IE, god.

But God, by the very virtue of being God, is an unchanging absolute, or at least so long-standing that any change in his moral opinion will far outlast existence as we know it.

So, assuming God controls morals, there are absolutes.

And for the record, Jesus did not write the Bible, he is just the central character in four of the books. The Old testament was edited together primarily by Ezra during and after the Babylonian exile, and the New testament was edited together by the apostles, I think.

 

[Agayek]

What about if that violence is initiated to prevent an OVERWHELMINGLY LARGE future violence?

As soon as people begin to initiate their plan, then you can take action. Otherwise, there is always the chance they will choose not to, and taking away that choice is worse. The direct threat of violence counts as initiation, though. If they come and say "We are going to attack you", you kill them as quickly as possible and eliminate the threat.

What if freedoms are interfered with now in order to prevent security failures of overwhelming ramifications?

No, no and god no. It is never a good thing to restrict freedoms, for any reason. If you are afraid of an attack, be more vigilant, keep an eye on possible suspects, but do not restrict the freedoms of the populace.

So, not INITIATING violence, but RETALIATING is fine? So building and stock piling weapons, but never doing anything with them, even horrific ones like biological and chemical warfare, is fine as long as you aren't the first person to use them?

Your black and white mentality has the simplest of logical flaws.

Yes. Retaliation is perfectly acceptable. If they attack you, retaliate with overwhelming force and end the conflict as quickly as humanly possible with yourself as the victor. Then turn around and go home.

As I said, initiation of violence is bad and morally wrong.

Everything else is perfectly acceptable.

 

[Easykill]

Oddly enough, general society DOES accept certain forms of rape. You hear about it all the time, when people talk about jail.And most of the time, the person talking about it sounds smugly satisfied that it's happening.

Anyway, I have my own morals I follow. Those morals prevent me from doing something so selfish as to force those morals on others. So, people can do whatever the hell they want and I won't call it evil or try to stop them. If it involves me or what I care about however,I will place my own morals above the offender's.

 

[UBourgeois]

Except for the fact that it is actually relatively common. More common than any of us would like to admit. Just because our so called civilized society has outlawed such things as rape, and pushed back the tendency to do it by establishing a large overhead in such acts, does not mean it is not uncommon. To argue that it is "so improbable" we can ignore it is an argument from lack of imagination.

It's common that everyone with optimal traits is unwilling to have sex? That seems like a ludicrous statement.

More than that, even if we assume an omni-omni god, that does not make him unchanging. Looking at his various religious texts shows he has changed his tune quite a bit, apparently. Even if he WAS unchanging, his will as an authority does not logically change the relativism of his morals. We can use set theory to establish morals in such a fashion, and prove that morals require some sort of authority, and thus are relative TO that authority.

Even assuming a singular god, any number of false gods can serve as an authority, and therefore have morals relative to them, and not the one true god (if you are into that sort of thing).

Well, first, to assume God is captured perfectly in every religious text is an absolutely absurd statement. Those are the words of men, not of God. And if it is an omni-omni god, as you say, his will is unchanging, so thus, absolute.

And assuming God is the ultimate power, his will would be the absolute, since we are merely creations of his fancy/boredom/creative mind.

 

[Agayek]

That is an overwhelmingly inane argument, which renders atrocities widely accepted to be horrible crimes against humanity to be completely acceptable, while rendering every single government in the history of the world evil.

Social contract theory dictates the people of the government are restricted from it, but get in return some level of security from it. This is a form of "taking away freedoms" as you say, and thus evil, and yet is the backbone of modern society as we know it. Without this particular aspect of human life, we would have never have gotten to the first world societies we now enjoy. All of this is, of course, patently evil by your very logic, as it requires removing freedoms from citizens for the good of all.

The fact you are using a computer to argue against something required for computers to be developed is quite ironic to me.

I've no idea on the historical implications of my ideology. I have done no research in it nor am I ever likely to, as I'm far too lazy to look it up. If you want to throw up a couple links to some places I can look into it, that'd be cool.

In my experience, security can go fuck itself. Authorities, in my life, typically have failed miserably at providing said security, and that has very much colored my worldview. Government, by its very nature, is flawed. Why the hell do my actions get to be dictated by that flawed system?

The way I see it, government can fuck off, and all the self-absorbed assholes that make government necessary in the first place can fuck off as well.

 

[secretsantaone]

Would you rape/torture/kill a child in order for 10 children to avoid being raped/killed/tortured?

Hate to sound utilitarian but it is for the greater good in this case.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

I don't believe in morals, I believe in the concept of good and bad that has been driven into our heads by whoever raises us. But I believe in good ideas and bad ideas, such as in the long term, it would not help society if everyone was allowed to kill, that would be a bad idea, so we derive our "morals" from that kind of thing.
But I don't believe in morals programmed in from birth.

 

[Ajna]

In my R.E. class today we were discussing Moral Absolutes, meaning something that is evil (or good) no matter what the situation. The only thing that we could come up with was Rape after coming to the conclusion that we believe that Euthanasia comes under killing. So what ideas do you have for this topic? Can you think of any more?

Couldn't rape be good if...

Hrm...

*ponders for a moment*

I have it! (kind of depresses me that it took about minute or so of thought to get this)

Rape could be good, if it lead to the capture of a serial rapist. That one instance of rape prevented several others.

I won that one, and you may get some extra credit for being able to disprove that one.

As for an absolute of my own...

*ponders for much longer than before*

Nope. Nothing. An honest-to-god five minute's worth of thought, and I've got nothing that's pure good or pure evil. From murder down to embezzlement and then on down to vandalism and onwards to chauvinism, I could think of no crime that was pure evil. From feeding the poor up to being a good Samaritan up to adoption and even on up to being named Christ, I could think of nothing.