How Did Jeffrey Dahmer Define Morality?
Offline Post Author: Bill Pratt
If morality is not grounded by a transcendent standard, a standard that is above all humanity, then it collapses to relativism. This concept is not at all difficult to understand, but relativism retains a negative enough connotation these days that atheists, who deny a transcendent, objective standard of morality, are still squeamish about the word.
Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who gained notoriety for eating his victims, understood the connection between God and morality all too well. Dahmer’s father recounted his son’s moral reasoning in a documentary produced in 1996: “If it all happens naturalistically, what’s the need for a God? Can’t I set my own rules? Who owns me? I own myself.”
Exactly. If there is no God, you have no accountability to anyone else at all. You own yourself and you can do with yourself whatever you please.
In an interview in 1994, Dahmer himself explained his thinking. He wondered that if there were no God and we all came “from the slime,” then “what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?”
The fact that we all instinctively cry out at Dahmer’s behavior does nothing to take away from the fact that his reasoning is right on target. He embodied the atheist worldview taken to its logical extremes. You may not like what Dahmer did, but unless you believe in an objective, transcendent moral standard, he didn’t do anything but act unfashionably.
Related posts:
- Does Evolution Explain Morality? Part 6
- Does Evolution Explain Morality? Part 5
- What Do We Know About Morality? Part 1
- Does Evolution Explain Morality? Part 4
- What Do We Know About Morality? Part 2
"This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."
--- Ecclesiastes 7:29, The Holy Bible
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Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Be charitable Ex, I'm sure God is crying manly tears.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Hey, I like that cartoon. Sums it up pretty nicely I would think.
I have had many theists argue with me that god wants us to suffer because he wants us to learn. If we could not suffer, it somehow would not be our free will. Such compassion on the part of their made up deity isn't there ?
Just like theists that try to blame all the evils on us and our free will but then say god "loves" us.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Yea...I always wonder what we're supposed to be learning, exactly.
Like that picture above. People already know about poverty and famine, so...was it about teaching that child how to die in misery? What about the other kids who didn't get their pictures taken before they died, and just had their whole family raped to death, *then* they died in misery, totally alone...they don't even have the opportunity to teach someone.
Well, I guess maybe someone might learn something from the mass grave the body will be in. Rates of decomposition maybe. Practice for DNA analysis? I know, maybe a dog will eat what is left, then that dog will have puppies, and one of those puppies will have a puppy who will help a fat kid from Alabama learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Really, anything is viable. the kids suffering doesn't really matter anyway, because its soul will live forever in heaven. Or hell. But if it was hell, the kid would have ended up there anyway, God can see into our hearts, after all.
Shit, now I'm pissed off again.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
The only thing that would make that image any more poignant would be if the child was kneeling praying to a god...
It really puts a fine point on how completely insane it is to assume there is a god and to use words like 'love' 'morals' 'compassion' and 'benevolence' , not to mention lecturing on 'commandments' on proper behaviour, in the context of said 'god'.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I actually had a theist tell me one time that god allows people to die horrible deaths from addiction and things like that so that others can see it and learn how to live . I have to admit, that one made me so angry I couldn't even respond for a second or two.
That's right up there with the theists that think they are being so damned smart when they tell me "If god stepped in to the picture and alleviated our suffering he would be taking away our free will". AAARGGGHH ! Enough with the free will bullshit already.
Actually like you pointed out, if the whole thing is hinging on accepting unprovable dogmas to go to heaven, what is the point in learning anything anyway ?
Sometimes, I truly feel like I have developed a major allergy to irrational nonsense. It gives me severe headaches.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Mel, I'm sorry, but that's just a dumb thing to say.
Who else is going to teach that child how to die in misery, if not God? Are you going to do it for him? No? It's because you are a heartless heathen and you don't care about him at all, that's why.
If you would accept the will and love of Jesus you might be willing to help that child die and agonizing, torturous death. Until that day, heathen, God will do it for us.
P.S. That is a really great pic which I am going to steal.