Why the god/God concept is broken as a claim. OP/ED

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Why the god/God concept is broken as a claim. OP/ED

Why the god/God concept is broken as a claim, OP ED.

To those who have rightfully left behind the idea of a disembodied super hero in the clouds, this is for the people who still insist the case must be.

There are multiple levels in which, what is merely in reality our projection of our own desires, in which the people who insist such is the case, that do not logically follow. Scientifically is a no brainer for those who have left all sorts of sky daddy claims who have accepted the reality that this is all there is.

BUT for those who still insist there must be some divine "creator" "inventor" or "cause" who has unlimited power, I have yet to see any credible argument, even outside science and merely on a moral level. Outside the lack of evidence, this is albatross that looms large for any human arguing the divine anywhere around the world in every country.

No one likes to be held back by force. Everyone strives to gain resources and questioning how things work is how we better understand the resources we use, it even tells us long term, how to cooperate with each other or dominate a hurdle in our way. Our delusions often get us stuck in our wishful thinking and predilections and if one looks at human history, no matter one's label today, they can look back at the ancient past to something they don't buy personally and say "I cant believe they bought that".

Now, the common concept of a god is that it is the apex, nothing is higher and it is the final "ref" if you are watering him down, or the final "law maker" whom you cant remove from office. In evolution in every species, there is a drive to be on top. Being on top means more resources, and more opportunity to reproduce. That is science however. I want to deal with the simply moral bankruptcy of any god claim.

"I am being oppressed" is the cry from the Muslim, the Jew and the Christian. It is even a battle between Indians in Cashmere. It is the battle between Buddhists in Tibet vs the Buddhists of the communist party in China.

Why do humans cling to a belief that puts them as the subordinate? For the same reason your mom and dad cant do anything wrong, even if they do lots of things wrong in reality. It is why we side to that we are sold and that which brings us comfort, even if what is sold to us is false. God/god belief works, not because invisible friends are real, but humans like the idea of being protected, like we evolved having our parents protect us.

 

OUTSIDE THAT THOUGH, the worst part of god claims is the moral aspect. Once you set up your god as the apex, it cannot fall. In reality all life falls and all humans die. What makes the god/God concept broken isn't just about the lack of scientific evidence. It is the idea that someone else determines our fate and good or bad, we have no say, and this entity, give it any name you want, owes us no explanation. In reality in the civil west that type of thinking does not fly. Our current election in America has both parties questioning and blaspheming both Romney and Obama. I am quite sure neither wants the other to gain absolute power, and I agree.

So how does one mentally square an unmovable apex power with the way we want to live in reality? How does one worship a a God you cant debate with or impeach or remove from office if it fucks up? If a God cannot make mistakes, then the title "all powerful" is a broken concept. But even beyond that immoral considering the fans of such claims say he is our "all powerful" protector.

Yet there has never been one period in human evolution that has not had violence or war or death, not to mention everyone dies. It seems like tons of drama a dictator wants to merely bring attention to themselves. It does not seem like a compassionate plan. When a child gets murdered, they are with God. If a child gets saved God was watching. But children worldwide die by the millions every year by disease, famine, war and crime. It seems a bit inept or malicious.

Skeptics know the real reason bad things happen, this is not a question for them. This is for anyone who claims Jesus, or Allah or Yahweh or even "Karma".

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Ktulu
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In other words, your

In other words, your subjective interpretation of pain versus pleasure is what you consider an objective frame of reference.  

 

"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc


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Ktulu wrote:In other words,

Ktulu wrote:

In other words, your subjective interpretation of pain versus pleasure is what you consider an objective frame of reference.

There's nothing subjective about the fact every sentient being has experiences it values more than others. You, as one of those beings, know damn well that it's better for you to be experiencing the sensations you value more. Unless you're somehow special then there's absolutely no logical reason to place your sensations above those of other sentients, meaning that X amount of your discomfort holds exactly the same weight as X amount of your neighbor's discomfort.


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Manageri wrote:Ooh, more

Manageri wrote:
Ooh, more psychoanalysis, you must be one kickass psychotherapist when you don’t even need to know anything about your clients’ life to know exactly how their psychology works.

Here’s some more psychoanalysis for you, son.  You’re the classic whinging, whining, bully, lashing out at everyone around you because you can’t deal with your own sense of inadequacy and unhappiness.  You use your fake concern for the suffering of animals as a screen to justify abusing everyone you come into contact with.

Your foul mouthed, boring, idiot-teenager, limited vocabulary makes reading what you say a real chore (I bet you talk that way to your parents, don’t you?).  You think by shouting the loudest and talking the longest you can shut everyone else up and force us to listen to your monologue of resentment and complaint. You’ll never commit suicide in a million years - you’re too in love with yourself.  But hey, go on prove me wrong, I dare you.

Now what I suggest is you try and find yourself some gainful employment to make yourself useful to society (is there an abattoir in your area?) and stop playing your little boy’s games on a site that’s designed for grown up debate.

I know that may seem harsh as we’re supposed to be tolerant of the mentally ill and mentally retarded but I’m afraid you’re a little out of your depth.  Perhaps a further spell of hospitalisation may help?  Please note I’m not a professional psychotherapist so I suggest if you have any further questions you seek qualified help.

All the best, you fuckwitted fucktard.
 

I quote no 'authorities'. I speak in my own words. I bring everything to the bar of my own judgment.


Manageri
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I lolled all the way through

I lolled all the way through reading that, thanks. I was hoping for some actual counter arguments but I must say this was way more fun.


Mr C O Jones
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Manageri wrote:lolled all

Manageri wrote:
lolled all the way through reading that, thanks. I was hoping for some actual counter arguments but I must say this was way more fun.

Oh right, you want to argue now, rather than whine, bully and abuse? Ok, here’s the argument – make sure you answer it this time:

Manageri wrote:

1) I hold my suffering to have negative value

2) Other creatures’ suffering feels just the same to them

3) ????

4) The suffering of other creatures is less valuable than mine

So what the fuck is this mysterious third premise that lets you assholes value the taste of your sandwich over the castration of a pig without any fucking painkillers? People are such assholes and you’re a prime example.

The missing premise 3 in your ‘logic’ is as follows:

3. I am a selfish Darwinian creature that has evolved to value its own well being as being more important than the suffering of others.

Geddit? Want to argue against the selfish gene do you? Want to argue against evolutionary theory?

You want to argue that, logically, all suffering should be equivalent, but suffering doesn’t have a logical value. As you said yourself, it’s our sensations that categorise suffering as a bad thing, not logic. So if our sensations categorise the suffering of others as less of a bad thing than our own, which they manifestly do, then that’s all there is to be said about it.

Your problem is that you’ve mixed up a rationally based argument that says the suffering of all beings should have an equivalent value (but one which has no emotional basis as this is manifestly untrue in terms of how we actually feel) with an emotionally based argument that says suffering is self-evidently a bad thing (which it is, but this has no necessary logical extension to giving equivalent value to the suffering of other beings - it rests on how we feel and we just don’t feel that other beings’ suffering is as important as our own.)

You think that it should be, and have willed yourself into believing that you do actually feel that way, but you’re kidding yourself and trying to kid us. The validity of suffering being a bad thing rests on our emotional response to it, not on any logical argument. So if our emotional response to others’ suffering is that it matters less than our own, then that must be true. Trying to show that logically we should attach equal weight to all suffering can never be true, because it isn’t logic that says suffering is a bad thing in the first place. Neither can logic judge the relative importance between one creature’s suffering and another’s, only subjective beings can do that through their emotions and these say that the suffering of others counts for less than our own.

We’re selfish beings – accept it. What’s your response to this – and please, keep to the point. Don’t try to avoid it by a smoke screen of insults and whining – let’s really hear what your argument is this time.

I quote no 'authorities'. I speak in my own words. I bring everything to the bar of my own judgment.


Manageri
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Mr C O Jones wrote:Oh right,

Mr C O Jones wrote:

Oh right, you want to argue now, rather than whine, bully and abuse? Ok, here’s the argument – make sure you answer it this time:

I was arguing the whole time. The difference between my posts and your previous post is I insulted you WHILE making an argument.

Manageri wrote:
Quote:

1) I hold my suffering to have negative value

2) Other creatures’ suffering feels just the same to them

3) ????

4) The suffering of other creatures is less valuable than mine

So what the fuck is this mysterious third premise that lets you assholes value the taste of your sandwich over the castration of a pig without any fucking painkillers? People are such assholes and you’re a prime example.

The missing premise 3 in your ‘logic’ is as follows:

3. I am a selfish Darwinian creature that has evolved to value its own well being as being more important than the suffering of others.

Geddit? Want to argue against the selfish gene do you? Want to argue against evolutionary theory?

Oh, brilliant. "Evolution made me a pedophile so I can't possibly be expected to figure out raping children is wrong".

Do I want to argue against doing whatever our idiotic DNA tries to make us do? Fucking right I do, I'm the one with a brain so why the hell would I take my marching orders from some idiotic DNA molecule?

If I follow your logic then I have no reason whatsoever to take anyone else's welfare into consideration since I can just assert my petty whims always come first. And this is your idea of morality? You suck.

 

Quote:
You want to argue that, logically, all suffering should be equivalent, but suffering doesn’t have a logical value. As you said yourself, it’s our sensations that categorise suffering as a bad thing, not logic. So if our sensations categorise the suffering of others as less of a bad thing than our own, which they manifestly do, then that’s all there is to be said about it.

Our sensations categorize suffering as bad, period (regardless of who experiences it). The reason we don't necessarily CARE about the suffering of others or do anything about it like we do our own is because we don't have to experience it. This does not mean that their suffering is any different and worth any less. You're essentially arguing that the debt of your neighbor is somehow worth less money because you're not the one who has to pay it, when quite obviously the debt is worth just as much and the only difference is you don't CARE about it as much.

Even when it comes to the suffering of our enemies we recognize it's just as bad, that's the whole point of hurting people you hate - we hurt them precisely because we know we can make them feel sensations with extreme negative value. If we thought their suffering means nothing then why the hell would we go out of our way to make them suffer?

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You think that it should be, and have willed yourself into believing that you do actually feel that way, but you’re kidding yourself and trying to kid us.

This psychoanalysis shit really does make you look like a retard you know, I'm not just saying that because I think you're a cunt. It's also a pointless exercise since even if you could prove I'm batshit insane that does nothing to disprove my arguments, you know, shooting the messenger and all that.

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The validity of suffering being a bad thing rests on our emotional response to it, not on any logical argument.

It rests on accepting welfare as an ethical axiom. You can't do that with pure logic but then again neither can you say we should do anything whatsoever using just logic. Eat so you don't starve? Not an inherently logical statement, it relies on accepting dying of starvation as bad. Don't jump into the campfire so you don't burn? Again, not built out of pure logic, it necessitates accepting suffering as bad. I don't see you subjectivists going around arguing there's no real reason not to burn yourselves though (and I certainly don't see you not pulling people out of fires) so it really doesn't bother me at all that ethics is necessarily built upon a premise that can't technically be proven with logic.

 

Quote:
So if our emotional response to others’ suffering is that it matters less than our own, then that must be true.

Except that you valuing my suffering as lesser than yours and me valuing your's as lesser than mine is a contradiction so one or both have to be wrong. The only ways you can avoid a contradiction are:

1) Assert no suffering has value and in so doing nullify all ethics

2) Assert that all equal suffering has equal value regardless of who experiences it

Take your pick bro, doesn't seem that difficult a choise to me.


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Hey fella, sorry for the

Hey fella, sorry for the delay in replying - some of us have to work for a living rather than scrounging off others.

Manageri wrote:
I was arguing the whole time. The difference between my posts and your previous post is I insulted you WHILE making an argument.


Yeah, you’re a foul mouthed little runt no matter who you’re talking to or what you’re talking about.

Quote:
Oh, brilliant. "Evolution made me a pedophile so I can't possibly be expected to figure out raping children is wrong".


You’re not very bright are you?  Have you never seen a pedophile interviewed?  Your damn right they can’t figure out that what they’re doing is wrong.  They think they’re doing the kid a favor.  Of course our DNA determines what we do – where do you think your conscience comes from – God?  No, you dingbat, your brain, i.e. your DNA.

Quote:
Do I want to argue against doing whatever our idiotic DNA tries to make us do? Fucking right I do, I'm the one with a brain so why the hell would I take my marching orders from some idiotic DNA molecule?


If your DNA isn’t giving you your marching orders, what is? Your soul?  So why have a body?

Quote:
If I follow your logic then I have no reason whatsoever to take anyone else's welfare into consideration since I can just assert my petty whims always come first. And this is your idea of morality? You suck.


Yeah, if you want to ‘assert your petty whims’ go right ahead – only you might run up against other people’s.  And why do you assume that DNA is only responsible for ‘petty whims’ when our DNA is responsible for everything we feel, from the basest desire to the most sophisticated aesthetic experience (and that includes our subjective personal morality).  They all take place in our brain, nowhere else, and our brains are made of DNA – but maybe not yours, eh?

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Our sensations categorize suffering as bad, period (regardless of who experiences it).

Really?  So how come we categorise the suffering of animals as not so bad?

Quote:
The reason we don’t necessarily CARE about the suffering of others or do anything about it like we do our own is because we don’t have to experience it.

But if we don’t CARE about it, then it isn’t as bad is it?  In what sense is it as bad?  The suffering of others isn’t as ‘bad’ as our own suffering precisely because we don’t experience it subjectively, as you’ve said. If we don’t care if other people are murdered, in what sense do we think that murder is morally bad?  Your whole argument is that we ‘ought’ to care about others’ suffering but you’ve just admitted that we don’t and you further admitted that we don’t because we don’t directly experience it subjectively – my point exactly, our morality is conditioned by our subjective experience.  Your argument is in tatters, my old son.

Quote:
This psychoanalysis shit really does make you look like a retard you know, I'm not just saying that because I think you're a cunt. It's also a pointless exercise since even if you could prove I'm batshit insane that does nothing to disprove my arguments, you know, shooting the messenger and all that.

I’m just trying to rid you of your latest delusion that you are JC.  I thought it might help your mental health.

Quote:
It rests on accepting welfare as an ethical axiom.

Yeah, I bet you accept welfare as an ethical axiom – you live on it, Welfare, you lazy self-pitying bum.  Why on earth would I accept an axiom like that?  As for the rest of this nonsensical section, we are not arguing whether we subjectively act in order to avoid suffering – of course we do – but whether we should see others’ suffering as just as important as our own – which of course we don’t.  Just see whether I save myself or you first from a burning building – whereas you, you poor cretin would have to save me and sacrifice yourself – or at least be paralysed into indecision, trying to choose between the two of us whose suffering is of equal value – by which time the building has collapsed on both of us - but hey buddy, thanks for trying to save me! In reality, we all know you’d be elbowing old ladies out of the way in your mad rush to save your miserable skinny ass.

Quote:
Except that you valuing my suffering as lesser than yours and me valuing your’s as lesser than mine is a contraction so one or both have to be wrong.

A contradiction?  Not at all, you fumbling ignoramus – only a contradiction if you attach an objective value to suffering, which I don’t.  It only has a subjective value, so my suffering can be more valuable to me, and yours to you with no contradiction.

As for your solutions to your own self-created non-problem, they are in fact self-contradictory:

Quote:
1) Assert no suffering has value and in so doing nullify all ethics.

Nullify all ethics?  Why do you think ethics has to rest on suffering?  Ethics are concerned with good and bad, right and wrong – nothing to do with suffering.  You could have an ethics based on intelligence or looks or weight or whatever – doesn’t have to be suffering – that’s your idea, based on I don’t know what – divine inspiration?

Quote:
2) Assert that all equal suffering has equal value regardless of who experiences it.

That’s a tautology.  If it’s equal suffering it must have equal value, or are you using equal in some other sense and if so what is it?  No, the reason you have to say equal suffering of equal value is because if you just said ‘suffering of equal value’ or ‘equal suffering of value’ you’d have to admit that there’s no way that you can determine what suffering does have equal value, because it’s only experienced subjectively.  Who could decide whether the death of a parent has equal value, or if you like, is equal suffering for two different individuals?


 

I quote no 'authorities'. I speak in my own words. I bring everything to the bar of my own judgment.


Manageri
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Mr C O Jones wrote:Hey

Mr C O Jones wrote:

Hey fella, sorry for the delay in replying - some of us have to work for a living rather than scrounging off others.

Yes, you're a paragon of self-reliance, it's not like you torture animals for your trivial pleasures or anything.

Quote:
Have you never seen a pedophile interviewed?  Your damn right they can’t figure out that what they’re doing is wrong.  They think they’re doing the kid a favor.

When I say pedophile I don't mean child molestor, I mean a person who is sexually attracted to children. Not all of them automatically act on those desires because some are actually decent people, unlike you, and even if they do that doesn't mean they can't figure out they're doing something wrong. Your idea that because you've seen a few child molestors interviewed who delude themselves into thinking all kinds of idiotic shit means all pedophiles are equally deluded is retarded.

Quote:
Of course our DNA determines what we do – where do you think your conscience comes from – God?  No, you dingbat, your brain, i.e. your DNA.

What I mean is that just because my DNA gives me some idiotic urge like pedophilia, I don't have to accept that as ethical. We have an intelligence now that can override that shit. We use our intelligence to defy our "creator" all the time, or do you think our DNA intended for us to use our intelligence for things like contraception? That's the difference between us and the other animals, we can actually think about the nonsense our psychology tries to make us do (or doesn't make us do) and recognize that most of it is idiotic.

 

Quote:
Yeah, if you want to ‘assert your petty whims’ go right ahead – only you might run up against other people’s.

This is your only objection? Someone might oppose me?

Quote:
And why do you assume that DNA is only responsible for ‘petty whims’ when our DNA is responsible for everything we feel, from the basest desire to the most sophisticated aesthetic experience (and that includes our subjective personal morality).  They all take place in our brain, nowhere else, and our brains are made of DNA – but maybe not yours, eh?

Just because the DNA holds the blueprint for our brain doesn't mean our intelligence is subservient to it.

 

 

Quote:
Quote:
The reason we don’t necessarily CARE about the suffering of others or do anything about it like we do our own is because we don’t have to experience it.

But if we don’t CARE about it, then it isn’t as bad is it?  In what sense is it as bad?  The suffering of others isn’t as ‘bad’ as our own suffering precisely because we don’t experience it subjectively, as you’ve said. If we don’t care if other people are murdered, in what sense do we think that murder is morally bad?  Your whole argument is that we ‘ought’ to care about others’ suffering but you’ve just admitted that we don’t and you further admitted that we don’t because we don’t directly experience it subjectively – my point exactly, our morality is conditioned by our subjective experience.  Your argument is in tatters, my old son.

I already explained this with the loan analogy but you skipped over it like the weasel you are. Just because I would rather have the robber steal your 100 dollars than mine doesn't mean your money is worth less, it only means I CARE LESS about your money even though it has EQUAL VALUE. Try dealing with the argument next time.

Quote:
Quote:
It rests on accepting welfare as an ethical axiom.

Yeah, I bet you accept welfare as an ethical axiom – you live on it, Welfare, you lazy self-pitying bum.

Weren't you just mocking my vocabulary? Here's a definition of welfare for you: "health, happiness and prosperity; well-being in any respect."

Only a complete tool could have mistaken it for the financial aid kind of welfare given the context, and I don't think even you are that stupid so I'm guessing you just enjoy being a manipulative weasel since that's easier than honestly adressing the argument.

 

Quote:
Why on earth would I accept an axiom like that?  As for the rest of this nonsensical section, we are not arguing whether we subjectively act in order to avoid suffering – of course we do – but whether we should see others’ suffering as just as important as our own – which of course we don’t.  Just see whether I save myself or you first from a burning building – whereas you, you poor cretin would have to save me and sacrifice yourself – or at least be paralysed into indecision, trying to choose between the two of us whose suffering is of equal value – by which time the building has collapsed on both of us - but hey buddy, thanks for trying to save me! In reality, we all know you’d be elbowing old ladies out of the way in your mad rush to save your miserable skinny ass.

You're an asshole so I sure as hell wouldn't worry about saving you over me. I do btw find it funny that here you are arguing for valuing yourself over others and simultaneously implying that elbowing old ladies outta the way would somehow be bad. Contradict yourself much?

Quote:
Quote:
Except that you valuing my suffering as lesser than yours and me valuing your’s as lesser than mine is a contraction so one or both have to be wrong.

A contradiction?  Not at all, you fumbling ignoramus – only a contradiction if you attach an objective value to suffering, which I don’t.  It only has a subjective value, so my suffering can be more valuable to me, and yours to you with no contradiction.

I went over this shit already - just because welfare as an ethical axiom is not something born out of pure logic does not mean that you can't make objective arguments once you do accept it. It really is basic logic:

1) Suffering is worse than pleasure

2) The monkey gets more pleasure from eating bananas than eating shit

3) Therefore I should feed the monkey bananas instead of shit

As long as you accept the premise of pleasure being better than suffering then there isn't a goddamn thing about this logic that isn't objective. If you don't accept the premise then you can't value your own welfare without contradicting yourself, and therefore have absolutely no argument to make against you being treated like shit. Without an axiom you accept as true you can't do any ethics whatsoever.

 

Quote:
As for your solutions to your own self-created non-problem, they are in fact self-contradictory:

Quote:
1) Assert no suffering has value and in so doing nullify all ethics.

Nullify all ethics?  Why do you think ethics has to rest on suffering?  Ethics are concerned with good and bad, right and wrong – nothing to do with suffering.  You could have an ethics based on intelligence or looks or weight or whatever – doesn’t have to be suffering – that’s your idea, based on I don’t know what – divine inspiration?

Yeah, in some idiot fucking fairyland thought experiment I could technically call suffering irrelevant to right and wrong, but I'm arguing about reality and if you're such a humongous dipshit that you actually think there's some possibility that suffering has nothing to do with real ethics then you're...I don't even know what to call you, you'd have to be such a preposterous mongoloid that there just aren't words to accurately describe it.

So why don't you answer the questions based on reality instead of nitpicking some technical theoretical bullshit to avoid them next time. Oh I forgot, you can't because you're too much a weasel for an honest argument.

Quote:
Quote:
2) Assert that all equal suffering has equal value regardless of who experiences it.

That’s a tautology.  If it’s equal suffering it must have equal value, or are you using equal in some other sense and if so what is it?

 

All this time you've been arguing that the suffering of animals isn't worth as much, and now you're saying equal suffering has equal value afterall? You just admitted I'm right, unless you're such an idiot that you think a pig's broken leg isn't as painful as a human's. Thanks, great debate.

Quote:
No, the reason you have to say equal suffering of equal value is because if you just said ‘suffering of equal value’ or ‘equal suffering of value’ you’d have to admit that there’s no way that you can determine what suffering does have equal value, because it’s only experienced subjectively.  Who could decide whether the death of a parent has equal value, or if you like, is equal suffering for two different individuals?

Right, it's really hard to decide which pain is worse, you getting your leg smashed by a sledgehammer or me receiving a pinprick, WHAT A DILEMMA OH MY! What an idiotic argument. Yeah, maybe we can't measure with absolute unerring accuracy what suffering is worse in every single situation, but that doesn't even remotely suggest that all such comparisons are inaccurate. This is like arguing that since we don't have a scale that can measure weight down to the 9000th decimal, we can't therefore make any absolute statements about weight whatsoever. With this fucknut logic if I say the mouse weighs more than the elephant then that's just as respectable an opinion as the opposite.


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Manageri wrote:Yes, you're a

Manageri wrote:
Yes, you're a paragon of self-reliance, it's not like you torture animals for your trivial pleasures or anything.

Whereas you are quite happy to live on the hand-outs from an animal torturing society – how can you stand it?  Your veganism is a cop out, funded by the blood money of millions of dead animals.  The only principled thing for you to do is to starve yourself to death, but that’s too tough for you, isn’t it?

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When I say pedophile I don't mean child molestor, I mean a person who is sexually attracted to children. Not all of them automatically act on those desires because some are actually decent people, unlike you, and even if they do that doesn't mean they can't figure out they're doing something wrong. Your idea that because you've seen a few child molestors interviewed who delude themselves into thinking all kinds of idiotic shit means all pedophiles are equally deluded is retarded.


So a child molester can figure out he’s done something wrong but still does it? Why does he do that if he knows it’s wrong?  Because you numbskull, he’s using your principle of pleasure over pain – his pleasure and his lack of pain about what he’s doing to the child.  But putting pleasure over pain was supposed to produce a moral outcome, according to you.


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What I mean is that just because my DNA gives me some idiotic urge like pedophilia, I don't have to accept that as ethical. We have an intelligence now that can override that shit. We use our intelligence to defy our "creator" all the time, or do you think our DNA intended for us to use our intelligence for things like contraception? That's the difference between us and the other animals, we can actually think about the nonsense our psychology tries to make us do (or doesn't make us do) and recognize that most of it is idiotic.


Christ what a mess – where do you think your intelligence comes from, if not from your DNA, thicko?  Sorry to repeat myself but obviously you’re the sort of person you have to say things more than once to.  Perhaps you could tell me (I asked you this last time) where your intelligence comes from if not your brain – your ass, perhaps?  So could we put you on life-support, surgically remove your tiny, barely human-sized brain, and yet miraculously your shining intelligence would still be there, delighting us all with its wit and acuity?


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This is your only objection? Someone might oppose me?


You seem to assume that our DNA is somehow equivalent to our animal instincts or something, and following our DNA is the same as Dr. Jekyll surrendering to the base depravity of Mr. Hyde.  What a quaint idea – almost Victorian in its absurdity.  As I’ve repeatedly explained, our DNA is responsible for everything we are, including our intelligence, our morality, our altruism – the whole shooting match.  Its subjective, selfish nature is curbed by the selfish subjective nature of others, with whom it needs to get on – hence morality, altruism etc.  The idea that all our DNA is responsible for is our ‘petty whims’ is so pathetic I really couldn’t face trying to explain it all to you – like trying to teach a chimp to do sums.


Quote:
Just because the DNA holds the blueprint for our brain doesn't mean our intelligence is subservient to it.


There you go again – that mystical ‘intelligence’ that comes from we know not where, that proud and noble soul, the ghost in the machine that distinguishes us from the animals (where do you get this shit, Spengler is it?).  You’re really a Cartesian dualist aren’t you, 400 years too late.  You talk about me being a ‘nihilist’ but in fact it’s you who sounds like the grandiose Nietzschean figure, moral superman, doling out your wisdom from on high, wanting to annihilate the human race (and presumably all your beloved animals) in a single generation through antinatalism.


Quote:
I already explained this with the loan analogy but you skipped over it like the weasel you are. Just because I would rather have the robber steal your 100 dollars than mine doesn't mean your money is worth less, it only means I CARE LESS about your money even though it has EQUAL VALUE. Try dealing with the argument next time.


Sorry, there’s no way I’m going to go back and read any of the drivel you’ve previously posted. Now let me see if I’ve got this right, your $100 is worth the same as my $100, yep, got that, but you don’t CARE as much about my $100 because it’s not yours – yep, got that – now where do we go?  Did you then mean to say that we can’t base our ethics on how much we care about something but on how much it’s ‘worth’.  But we don’t do that, do we, as you’ve just admitted.
Leaving aside questions about what you mean by ‘worth’ or ‘equal value’ let’s assume a chicken’s life is worth just as much to a chicken as our lives are to us i.e. it has equal value.  Yet virtually no one thinks a chicken’s life is worth as much as their own life – so what are we missing?  Either you’re missing something crucial about the way human beings work out their morality, or you’re trying to impose an alien morality on them that says they ought to feel a certain way, when they don’t.
For you, saying that things have equal value, be it equal financial value or whatever, must mean they have equal moral value, because you have a set of moral precepts that you think are self-evidently ethical – equality, concern for suffering, fairness etc., and all such idealistic, left-wing Christian bullshit.  Anyone who doesn’t subscribe to these values is, per se, immoral.  You have no argument as to why these values should be accepted as good –  that’s taken as red - you believe all you have to do is say that two things are equal or unequal for your case to be made – but that only works if you already accept that equality is a moral good.


Quote:
Weren't you just mocking my vocabulary? Here's a definition of welfare for you: "health, happiness and prosperity; well-being in any respect."
Only a complete tool could have mistaken it for the financial aid kind of welfare given the context, and I don't think even you are that stupid so I'm guessing you just enjoy being a manipulative weasel since that's easier than honestly adressing the argument.


No, I didn’t mistake your use of the term welfare, you plonker – I was just pointing out the appropriateness of a Welfare scrounger  like you putting forward welfare (lower case, asshole), as an ethical axiom.
As for addressing the argument, what argument? You’ve made no argument as to why welfare should be an ethical axiom, you just accept it as a given and expect everyone else to do the same.  You think a convincing argument is saying that things like suffering must have an ‘equal value’ – once you’ve done that you think your case is made because, hey, everyone believes in fairness and equality don’t they, so if you can say that things like suffering are ‘equal’ between animals and humans then everyone will start acting as though they mattered as much – but they don’t act that way, so who’s mistaken?
You haven’t addressed why anyone should regard fairness or equality or suffering or any other such bullshit liberal principle as a moral imperative.  And if you go back to ‘well it’s obvious, it feels that way’ – subjective experience doesn’t give us the right answer in terms of other people’s pain, because we don’t experience it.


Quote:
You're an asshole so I sure as hell wouldn't worry about saving you over me. I do btw find it funny that here you are arguing for valuing yourself over others and simultaneously implying that elbowing old ladies outta the way would somehow be bad. Contradict yourself much?


You pathetic little fuckwit, you seem to think that unless someone has your fucked up ‘morality’ theory they can’t have any morality at all and must be a ‘nihilist’.  Of course elbowing old ladies would be bad in your case, as you’re not worth a clipping from an old lady’s in-growing toe-nail, but we Darwinian subjectivists still have our own altruistic tendencies, the protection of weaker members of  the group for the good of the group, being one of them – ultimately selfish      of course, as all genuine altruism and compassion  is – which is why yours is completely phony.


Quote:
I went over this shit already - just because welfare as an ethical axiom is not something born out of pure logic does not mean that you can't make objective arguments once you do accept it. It really is basic logic:
1) Suffering is worse than pleasure
2) The monkey gets more pleasure from eating bananas than eating shit
3) Therefore I should feed the monkey bananas instead of shit
As long as you accept the premise of pleasure being better than suffering then there isn't a goddamn thing about this logic that isn't objective. If you don't accept the premise then you can't value your own welfare without contradicting yourself, and therefore have absolutely no argument to make against you being treated like shit. Without an axiom you accept as true you can't do any ethics whatsoever.


Yeah, you ‘went over this statement’ before and got it completely wrong and now you’ve gone over it again and fucked it up even more.  So here’s another example of your logic:
1) Suffering is worse than pleasure
2) The pedophile gets pleasure from fucking children and suffers when he can’t
3) We should allow the pedos’ to fuck the children.
As long as you accept the premise of ‘pleasure being better than suffering then there isn’t a goddamn thing about this logic that isn’t objective.’  

                                                               
That’s right, boyo, you’ve just written a pedophile’s charter – and don’t come back with some shit about the child’s suffering outweighing the pedo’s pleasure – why didn’t you put that in your example then?  And anyway the pedo doesn’t give a shit about the child’s suffering so for him your logic works perfectly – subjectively he has no suffering and plenty of pleasure.  Do you fancy children by the way you’re making a pretty good case for it, you sound like one of those virtuous pedos you keep praising – you know, the guy who wants to fuck children but who’s wonderful sense of morality stops him doing it.


Quote:
Yeah, in some idiot fucking fairyland thought experiment I could technically call suffering irrelevant to right and wrong, but I'm arguing about reality and if you're such a humongous dipshit that you actually think there's some possibility that suffering has nothing to do with real ethics then you're...I don't even know what to call you, you'd have to be such a preposterous mongoloid that there just aren't words to accurately describe it.
So why don't you answer the questions based on reality instead of nitpicking some technical theoretical bullshit to avoid them next time. Oh I forgot, you can't because you're too much a weasel for an honest argument.

 

Oh, so you’ve admitted that you’re not making a philosophical argument about ethics – you’re just not clever enough I suppose.  I overestimated your intelligence.  I thought you were trying to put forward (albeit laughably inadequately) your little philosophical theory of ethics that you dreamed up all by yourself, whereas in fact you were just saying that nice things are nice and nasty things are nasty and we should try to be nice to animals because they don’t like nasty things either.  And do you know what my little  friend, you’re absolutely right about that.  Well done, good effort, now go out into the playground and find your friends (and watch out for that nasty pedo standing at the school gates who thinks that pleasure is better than pain).


Quote:
All this time you've been arguing that the suffering of animals isn't worth as much, and now you're saying equal suffering has equal value afterall? You just admitted I'm right, unless you're such an idiot that you think a pig's broken leg isn't as painful as a human's. Thanks, great debate.

 

You don’t understand the word tautology do you?  Now go and look it up.  Get it now? It means saying the same thing twice, as in ‘equal suffering has equal value’ – the ‘value’ of suffering, as you put it, must be a measure of the amount of suffering – but the ‘equal’ in ‘equal suffering’ is also a measure of the amount of suffering. It’s a tautology, not an argument, or even a premise. You also  missed that little word ‘if’ at the start of the sentence – it means, roughly speaking, if this cretin’s idea that you can have a thing called ‘equal suffering’ were true, it must necessarily also be of equal value, because the two things mean the same. 
I know this is all a bit over your head but I thought it worth trying to explain it to you, let me know if you still don’t get it.


Quote:
Right, it's really hard to decide which pain is worse, you getting your leg smashed by a sledgehammer or me receiving a pinprick, WHAT A DILEMMA OH MY! What an idiotic argument. Yeah, maybe we can't measure with absolute unerring accuracy what suffering is worse in every single situation, but that doesn't even remotely suggest that all such comparisons are inaccurate. This is like arguing that since we don't have a scale that can measure weight down to the 9000th decimal, we can't therefore make any absolute statements about weight whatsoever. With this fucknut logic if I say the mouse weighs more than the elephant then that's just as respectable an opinion as the opposite.


I’ve already dealt with this above.  I know perfectly well that, for you, getting your legs smashed is worse than a pin prick – but not for me. For me, a pin prick is far worse than you getting your legs crushed, in fact, you getting your legs crushed would be for me, an absolute joy – no suffering involved at all.  You see, my old son, we can only compare suffering subjectively – sure I’d rather have a pin prick than getting my legs crushed but your legs I couldn’t give a toss about.  And that’s how our morality works.  We pay lip service to the suffering of others, but only in so far as it protects us from things that might threaten our subjective wellbeing.
Now you toddle off to your tent-dwelling anti-capitalist protester friends and have a nice pipe of blow and you’ll feel a whole lot better about yourself.  Nighty-night.
 
          


 

I quote no 'authorities'. I speak in my own words. I bring everything to the bar of my own judgment.


Manageri
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Mr C O Jones wrote: Whereas

Mr C O Jones wrote:

 

Whereas you are quite happy to live on the hand-outs from an animal torturing society – how can you stand it?  Your veganism is a cop out, funded by the blood money of millions of dead animals.  The only principled thing for you to do is to starve yourself to death, but that’s too tough for you, isn’t it?

Actually it'd be far more principled for me to starve you to death seeing as you're one of the assholes causing the problems.

Quote:
So a child molester can figure out he’s done something wrong but still does it? Why does he do that if he knows it’s wrong?  Because you numbskull, he’s using your principle of pleasure over pain – his pleasure and his lack of pain about what he’s doing to the child.  But putting pleasure over pain was supposed to produce a moral outcome, according to you.

If you don't understand how our desires can make us do things we later consider unethical then you're just too fucking stupid for words. You get drunk, you beat your wife, you wake up feeling like an asshole - not complicated.

You also still seem to be unable to understand that me saying pleasure over pain means FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED, not one asshole like you doing whatever the fuck feels good to him at the cost of others' misery. Actually I don't think it's a lack of understanding, you're just such a fucking weasel you have to deliberately misinterpret everything to avoid dealing with the real argument.


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Christ what a mess – where do you think your intelligence comes from, if not from your DNA, thicko?

Explain how I argued our DNA isn't responsible for producing our intelligence.


Quote:
Quote:
This is your only objection? Someone might oppose me?


You seem to assume that our DNA is somehow equivalent to our animal instincts or something, and following our DNA is the same as Dr. Jekyll surrendering to the base depravity of Mr. Hyde.  What a quaint idea – almost Victorian in its absurdity.  As I’ve repeatedly explained, our DNA is responsible for everything we are, including our intelligence, our morality, our altruism – the whole shooting match.  Its subjective, selfish nature is curbed by the selfish subjective nature of others, with whom it needs to get on – hence morality, altruism etc.  The idea that all our DNA is responsible for is our ‘petty whims’ is so pathetic I really couldn’t face trying to explain it all to you – like trying to teach a chimp to do sums.

The point, fucknut, is that our DNA is responsible for producing all kinds of idiotic shit in our psychology, like the feeling that the people with a different skin color are somehow not just as human or in some way less important. Our intelligence, despite the fact it was produced by our DNA just like our idiotic psychology, is capable of seeing past these idiotic notions and overriding them in our decision making process to a large degree. I really don't believe you can't see the difference between psychology and intelligence so I can only assume this is yet another weasely game of yours.


Quote:

You talk about me being a ‘nihilist’ but in fact it’s you who sounds like the grandiose Nietzschean figure, moral superman, doling out your wisdom from on high, wanting to annihilate the human race (and presumably all your beloved animals) in a single generation through antinatalism.

There really is little difference in a nihilist asshole saying there is no value and you subjectivist assholes saying everyone decides for themselves what everything is worth.

Nihilist: kicking babies is meaningless one way or the other.

Subjectivist: my desire to know whether or not my shoe can handle kicking ten thousand babies is more important than the pain of the babies.

Both positions are for spineless cunts like you who can't handle being judged for the assholes they are.

 

Quote:
Sorry, there’s no way I’m going to go back and read any of the drivel you’ve previously posted.

If you dealt with them when you first read them you wouldn't have to, fuckface.

Quote:
Now let me see if I’ve got this right, your $100 is worth the same as my $100, yep, got that, but you don’t CARE as much about my $100 because it’s not yours – yep, got that – now where do we go?  Did you then mean to say that we can’t base our ethics on how much we care about something but on how much it’s ‘worth’.  But we don’t do that, do we, as you’ve just admitted.

I admitted something of the sort where exactly?


Quote:
Leaving aside questions about what you mean by ‘worth’ or ‘equal value’

Let's not. You know exactly what I mean you fucking weasel. If two people getting kicked in the balls feel the exact same pain then it's equally wrong to kick them in the balls, all other relevant things being equal.

Quote:
let’s assume a chicken’s life is worth just as much to a chicken as our lives are to us i.e. it has equal value.  Yet virtually no one thinks a chicken’s life is worth as much as their own life – so what are we missing?  Either you’re missing something crucial about the way human beings work out their morality, or you’re trying to impose an alien morality on them that says they ought to feel a certain way, when they don’t.

And a while back the majority felt black people are nothing but fucktarded savages meant to work for the white man. Was the fact people thought that in any fucking way relevant to what the ethical way to treat black people actually was? "Let's ask the retards" is not a productive way of doing ethics, if you can't see why then you are one of the retards we shouldn't be asking.


Quote:
For you, saying that things have equal value, be it equal financial value or whatever, must mean they have equal moral value, because you have a set of moral precepts that you think are self-evidently ethical – equality, concern for suffering, fairness etc., and all such idealistic, left-wing Christian bullshit.

So you think concern for suffering, fairness and equality are bullshit ideas? I really don't need to add anything to this, the assholery speaks for itself.

Quote:
Anyone who doesn’t subscribe to these values is, per se, immoral.  You have no argument as to why these values should be accepted as good –  that’s taken as red - you believe all you have to do is say that two things are equal or unequal for your case to be made – but that only works if you already accept that equality is a moral good.

That's right, I really don't have an argument for why welfare matters, and I don't care. Are you gonna tell me you disagree? Go ahead, tell me you actually believe that suffering is entirely meaningless when it comes to deciding how to treat each other in the real world.


Quote:
No, I didn’t mistake your use of the term welfare, you plonker – I was just pointing out the appropriateness of a Welfare scrounger  like you putting forward welfare (lower case, asshole), as an ethical axiom.

Which you did nothing to argue against. If you don't think that sentient welfare is a good ethical axiom then why don't you tell me what is. Oh that's right, you subjectivist assholes can only ever cry about how other people's axioms suck, you never have the balls to actually state your own since you know you'd either have to make it something preposterous like "I'm worth as much as ten million other creatures in every respect", or you'd be shown to be an inconsistent asshole if you made it something reasonable. Prove me wrong, fucker.


Quote:
Quote:
I went over this shit already - just because welfare as an ethical axiom is not something born out of pure logic does not mean that you can't make objective arguments once you do accept it. It really is basic logic:
1) Suffering is worse than pleasure
2) The monkey gets more pleasure from eating bananas than eating shit
3) Therefore I should feed the monkey bananas instead of shit
As long as you accept the premise of pleasure being better than suffering then there isn't a goddamn thing about this logic that isn't objective. If you don't accept the premise then you can't value your own welfare without contradicting yourself, and therefore have absolutely no argument to make against you being treated like shit. Without an axiom you accept as true you can't do any ethics whatsoever.


Yeah, you ‘went over this statement’ before and got it completely wrong and now you’ve gone over it again and fucked it up even more.  So here’s another example of your logic:
1) Suffering is worse than pleasure
2) The pedophile gets pleasure from fucking children and suffers when he can’t
3) We should allow the pedos’ to fuck the children.
As long as you accept the premise of ‘pleasure being better than suffering then there isn’t a goddamn thing about this logic that isn’t objective.’  

                                                               
That’s right, boyo, you’ve just written a pedophile’s charter – and don’t come back with some shit about the child’s suffering outweighing the pedo’s pleasure – why didn’t you put that in your example then?

Because bananas and turds can't suffer, you fucking mongoloid. Quite obviously when I write an equation where there's only one thing with welfare you can't equate it with an equation where one thing gets its pleasure from torturing something else, you useless piece of weasel shit.


 


Quote:
Quote:
All this time you've been arguing that the suffering of animals isn't worth as much, and now you're saying equal suffering has equal value afterall? You just admitted I'm right, unless you're such an idiot that you think a pig's broken leg isn't as painful as a human's. Thanks, great debate.

You don’t understand the word tautology do you?  Now go and look it up.  Get it now? It means saying the same thing twice, as in ‘equal suffering has equal value’ – the ‘value’ of suffering, as you put it, must be a measure of the amount of suffering – but the ‘equal’ in ‘equal suffering’ is also a measure of the amount of suffering. It’s a tautology, not an argument, or even a premise. You also  missed that little word ‘if’ at the start of the sentence – it means, roughly speaking, if this cretin’s idea that you can have a thing called ‘equal suffering’ were true, it must necessarily also be of equal value, because the two things mean the same. 
I know this is all a bit over your head but I thought it worth trying to explain it to you, let me know if you still don’t get it.

I think it's you who still doesn't get it. You keep arguing that the EQUAL SUFFERING of two different entities does not have EQUAL VALUE. You think that when you have a broken leg, it's horrible, but when someone else does it's irrelevant.


Quote:

I’ve already dealt with this above.  I know perfectly well that, for you, getting your legs smashed is worse than a pin prick – but not for me. For me, a pin prick is far worse than you getting your legs crushed, in fact, you getting your legs crushed would be for me, an absolute joy – no suffering involved at all.  You see, my old son, we can only compare suffering subjectively – sure I’d rather have a pin prick than getting my legs crushed but your legs I couldn’t give a toss about.  And that’s how our morality works.  We pay lip service to the suffering of others, but only in so far as it protects us from things that might threaten our subjective wellbeing. 

So we're back to this shit again? Yeah, keep arguing that my 100 bucks is worth less than yours, you only make yourself look more retarded every time.


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You guys are both getting

You guys are both getting out of hand. Can't you disagree without throwing never-ending streams of personal attacks against each other? It is one thing to respond to an attack, but this is getting really stupid.

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I actually find it strangely

I actually find it strangely therapeutic. I don't really care how you argue with me as long as you adress the actual subject in between calling me names.


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 I have been finding this

 I have been finding this discussion rather amusing.

BTW, from an economic standpoint, no serious economist would agree that $100 is worth the same regardless of who has it or what it is doing. The value of $100 is very subjective. Even for the same person, the value of $100 can vary greatly depending on time, location, need, ability to make more (or lack thereof) and total net worth. And arguing that $100 in Bill Gates pocket has the same value as $100 in your pocket is flat out absurd. If Bill Gates loses $100 he probably isn't going to sweat it, if you lose $100, you are probably tearing up your place looking for it. The very definition of subjective value.

The value of a dollar changes rapidly due to hundreds of different variables, many industries take advantage of this fact and make money off of the differences. Declaring that $100 has identical value regardless of where it is demonstrates at best a first grade understanding of money. /OCD

Continue on. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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ThunderJones wrote:You guys

ThunderJones wrote:

You guys are both getting out of hand. Can't you disagree without throwing never-ending streams of personal attacks against each other? It is one thing to respond to an attack, but this is getting really stupid.

Then I would advise you not to get between Beyond Saving and I. At least when we are beating the shit out of each other on economic issues. We are on the same page as far as the existence of god, and we both watch sports to some degree, and that bastard owes this commie a beer.

The verbal shit hitting the fan is harmless compared to the actually reality of the club mentality our species has suffered from. I used to be against the sport of boxing, and still am. But it depends. I am against it because it DOES cause physical harm. But being a smoker and drinker, how can be that much of a hypocrite? I hate boxing, but some people dont. I don't think debate should be any different. If the two parties involved know it is just words, then let them do it.

I know in reality, as much as Beyond Saving hates my economic positions, and as much as I hate his, I doubt very seriously either of us would pass the other after a car accident and say "I hate him, let him die".

I hate more a PC atheist OR theist, than I do an atheist or theist who is not PC who understand that after all the blather, a bar, and a sporting event and a pint can unify both of us.

 

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Beyond Saving wrote:BTW,

Beyond Saving wrote:

BTW, from an economic standpoint, no serious economist would agree that $100 is worth the same regardless of who has it or what it is doing.

Of course people in different circumstances care more or less about having a 100 bucks, the point is that it doesn't matter who holds the money, it buys everyone the same amount of stuff. I know it's not a perfect comparison by any means but I can't come up with a way to make a proper analogy without writing like ten paragraphs worth of nuance crap so it'll have to do unless you have a better one.


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Old Seer wrote:Brian37

Old Seer wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

Quote:
Civilization operates on the animal premise

BINGO! WE ARE NOT ABOVE NATURE, WE ARE NOT ABOVE EVOLUTION, WE ARE NOT ABOVE DOING EITHER GOOD OR BAD, BECAUSE WE ARE PART OF NATURE!

The sooner you realize that and the sooner you realize how fragile life is and how non magical it is, you will realize how stupid humans usually are in thinking they are special. 5 million people die each year, from everything, disease, famine, crime, car accidents, natural disaster, war, EVERYTHING. And even babies born outnumber the people who die every year. LIFE IS NOT SPECIAL.

This is what we have that you dont, HUMILITY! If every human drove a car that had a hair trigger nuclear bomb on the bumper, most would drive more carefully. Our problem is as a species is that we do think we are special, WE ARE NOT! Evolution was around before both you and I were born, and it will go on even after our species goes extinct.

Of course we operate on the animal level because we are PART of evolution, not above it. Our collective problem is that we did evolve with brains to comprehend this fact, but still act like tribal dumbass children, even now that we know better. So if our brains are supposed to give us an advantage, I'd say sticking to superstition is a dumb fucking way to show it.

So if you want to say we act like children beating each other up in a schoolyard, I AGREE, and if your argument is "it doesn't have to be that way" AGAIN,  I AGREE. But sticking in a mythological super hero invented in an ignorant past FOR all of our species, wont solve shit.

Adults worldwide, if their god is a state, or they worship a god, these are the morons who do not accept that we are not above nature. These are the morons who drive that car with the nuke on the bumper as if in a demolishion derby.

We will compete and kill for resources always. Until we realize that, our cooperation as a species cannot be maximized and our conflict will not be minimized. We are no different than any other species and to think such is absurd and dangerous and puts bullshit utopia fantasy above our collective common existence.

And of course we are products of nature. Everything comes from the big bang--if that turns out to be the way things got here. You're over-looking the "human". It's not all about animal, we have the human side too- right. You're not showing us anything new here. In our group we are scientists too. Evidence is evidence. Atheism has one thing we agree on (among others) and that's the present religious perspective needs to be done away with, and that is our prime goal. But---you can't do it your way. Animal begats animal and is unsolvable---nature doesn't mean or make it to be solved. We merely need to put it away, and it won't be easy. If we want to solve the problem it's "we the people" that have to solve it. we need to walk away from polititians and leaders and let then sulk in their own misery instead of us paying the price for their mental conditions. So far floks are stuck with what's given them and how they are trained from birth. Invoke human concepts and refrain from the animal---it's a choice---and when one understands the choice he/he can become their own person rather then some kind of machine to do the work so the elites can get knocked out of their high towers and do their own work and no longer suck the blood of the masses and put them on a battlefield for their profits and mistakes.

On this team there's no super hero to look to. We're on our own. And we suggest everyone else do the same.

The argument is over what fills in the gap of knowledge. Ethical scientists wont dispute that there is a dispute over what can be done to fill that gap. But even with all the disagreement ETHICAL scientists don't dwell on magic or superstition or personal wishes or ancient bullshit desert myth or new age pantheist woo.

So if you want to postulate a thinking being with no brain outside evolution and material, I am sorry, but the jury is out and the verdict has long been on claims of sky daddies of any label, in REALITY bull fucking shit!

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Manageri wrote:Of course

Manageri wrote:

Of course people in different circumstances care more or less about having a 100 bucks, the point is that it doesn't matter who holds the money, it buys everyone the same amount of stuff.

No, it doesn't. If you go to your closest grocery store with $100 and I go to mine with $100 the odds are that we would walk out with a different amount of stuff even if we were working from some pre-arranged shopping list. Something as small as physical location can dramatically effect the purchasing power of $100 and that is assuming that we would both use $100 to purchase stuff- an assumption that cannot be made with any certainty. The value of money, the purchasing power of money and what money will be used for is completely subjective. Pick any random two subjects and give them $100 and each will get differing amounts of stuff.

It is a much better analogy than I think you believe. It is accurate because morality is subjective in many of the same ways. Pick two people living in the same house, raised together with similar viewpoints and similar experiences and the values they draw from $100 are likely to be quite similar. It is also quite likely that their moral beliefs will be very similar. Pick two people in different countries, raised with different habits and different experiences and the value they draw from $100 are likely to be much more different. Their morality is also likely to be much more different as well.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:Manageri

Beyond Saving wrote:

Manageri wrote:

Of course people in different circumstances care more or less about having a 100 bucks, the point is that it doesn't matter who holds the money, it buys everyone the same amount of stuff.

No, it doesn't. If you go to your closest grocery store with $100 and I go to mine with $100 the odds are that we would walk out with a different amount of stuff even if we were working from some pre-arranged shopping list. Something as small as physical location can dramatically effect the purchasing power of $100 and that is assuming that we would both use $100 to purchase stuff- an assumption that cannot be made with any certainty. The value of money, the purchasing power of money and what money will be used for is completely subjective. Pick any random two subjects and give them $100 and each will get differing amounts of stuff.

It is a much better analogy than I think you believe. It is accurate because morality is subjective in many of the same ways. Pick two people living in the same house, raised together with similar viewpoints and similar experiences and the values they draw from $100 are likely to be quite similar. It is also quite likely that their moral beliefs will be very similar. Pick two people in different countries, raised with different habits and different experiences and the value they draw from $100 are likely to be much more different. Their morality is also likely to be much more different as well.

For someone who has just argued the complexity of reality, I find you the most obtuse and as delusional as a theist. The only difference between their script and yours is the fixation, but it is still a fixation.

If evolution is a range, which it is, then why should economics be as black and white as you want it to be, and why would you hypocritically say what I have been saying all along "IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLE".

It will never be as simple as " fuck you I got mine" or " mommy I want to suck your teet as long as I live". Maybe the range is maximized when we accept that you cannot take care of everyone, but you cannot at the same time kill off the buying base which are the shoulders of of the society that you stand on. Slavery does work, but it is as temporary the slave masters and all a revolution of any label needs is a desire for food.

 

 

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Beyond Saving wrote:Manageri

Beyond Saving wrote:

Manageri wrote:

Of course people in different circumstances care more or less about having a 100 bucks, the point is that it doesn't matter who holds the money, it buys everyone the same amount of stuff.

No, it doesn't. If you go to your closest grocery store with $100 and I go to mine with $100 the odds are that we would walk out with a different amount of stuff even if we were working from some pre-arranged shopping list. Something as small as physical location can dramatically effect the purchasing power of $100 and that is assuming that we would both use $100 to purchase stuff- an assumption that cannot be made with any certainty. The value of money, the purchasing power of money and what money will be used for is completely subjective. Pick any random two subjects and give them $100 and each will get differing amounts of stuff.

Well since you're feeling nitpicky I'll clarify: It doesn't matter who holds the 100 bucks, it'll get two different people the exact same shit in the same circumstance. If we go to the same gas station and buy 20 liters of gas you'll be looking at the exact same number being deducted from your bank account as I will.

Quote:
It is a much better analogy than I think you believe. It is accurate because morality is subjective in many of the same ways. Pick two people living in the same house, raised together with similar viewpoints and similar experiences and the values they draw from $100 are likely to be quite similar. It is also quite likely that their moral beliefs will be very similar. Pick two people in different countries, raised with different habits and different experiences and the value they draw from $100 are likely to be much more different. Their morality is also likely to be much more different as well.

The guy in the USA and the guy in South Africa are gonna be paying the exact same amount for their mail order Inflatable Arnold, just like both of them are equal assholes for raping someone no matter what their cultural propaganda has to say on the matter.


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Brian37 wrote:For someone

Brian37 wrote:

For someone who has just argued the complexity of reality, I find you the most obtuse and as delusional as a theist. The only difference between their script and yours is the fixation, but it is still a fixation.

If evolution is a range, which it is, then why should economics be as black and white as you want it to be, and why would you hypocritically say what I have been saying all along "IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLE".

It is precisely because of the complexity that the idea that government can effectively regulate better than individuals involved in the situation is absurd. If economics was as simple as Manageri seems to believe it is, government control of everything would work wonderfully. In the real world, economics is incredibly complex and imagining that bureaucrats sitting behind a desk in Washington, D.C. know the solutions to everything is about as obtuse as you can get.

My position is, and always has been, that you are better suited to make economic decisions that affect you better than any bureaucrat, and I am better suited to make my economic decisions than any bureaucrat. Yet, you continue to insist that government should be making these decisions, if you recognize that the economy is complex, why would you give the power to make important decisions to a central power?

It is precisely because of the complexity that it is none of your business (or the government's) to regulate my business, because neither one of you could possibly know it better than me. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Manageri wrote:The guy in

Manageri wrote:

The guy in the USA and the guy in South Africa are gonna be paying the exact same amount for their mail order Inflatable Arnold, just like both of them are equal assholes for raping someone no matter what their cultural propaganda has to say on the matter.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_navbox_596184_tips?nodeId=596186

Not if they are both buying it from Amazon.com, the guy in the US pays a few bucks for shipping the guy in South Africa would pay a lot more for the exact same item. Location matters. And again, that is using the simplistic assumption that we would both purchase the same thing or even both purchase anything. Very similar to your simplistic assumption that the value of different beings suffering is equal. There is no way you can measure the value of money without being subjective (i.e. where is the person located, how much money do they have, do they have debt/obligations, are they likely to invest or spend the money, does the person have many options/few options etc.) All of these play a role in determining the value of $100. Sure, given two identical subjects, the value of $100 is identical, but there is no such thing as two identical subjects. 

And since no two people are absolutely identical, differences in the value of suffering are naturally just as universal as the value of money- both are completely dependent upon the subject evaluating the value. Ultimately, both money and suffering only have the value that you believe it does, which may be a lot or may be none at all. In either case, there is no universal or absolute value. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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I'm really not gonna argue

I'm really not gonna argue this nitpicky bullshit when I already said it's not a perfect comparison, and you can figure out the general idea regardless. All other relevant things being equal the service provider is gonna provide the same service to the guy who pays more, that's as far as the analogy needs to go to make the point.

Btw I was disappointed when I clicked the link, I was hoping for something homoerotic and lulzy.


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Manageri wrote:I'm really

Manageri wrote:

I'm really not gonna argue this nitpicky bullshit when I already said it's not a perfect comparison, and you can figure out the general idea regardless. All other relevant things being equal the service provider is gonna provide the same service to the guy who pays more, that's as far as the analogy needs to go to make the point.

Btw I was disappointed when I clicked the link, I was hoping for something homoerotic and lulzy.

To separate from the money for a bit, I think it is rather obvious that the value of anything is subjective, whether you are talking about the aesthetic value, monetary value, or moral value the relative value of items A and B are dependent upon the subject assigning value to it. What one person finds extremely valuable, another might not find valuable at all. You have yet to explain why we should assign equal value to all suffering. You have simply declared we should, when we clearly don't. It is as logical as if you declared that all paintings should have equal value and that a Van Gogh painting is equal value with a painting of equal size that you made.

Your "general idea" is generally idiotic and not applicable anywhere other than a kindergarten book on how to count coins. Whether you apply it to morality, economics or aesthetics it has the same basic fault of ignoring that value is inherently subjective. Your general idea doesn't survive contact with anyone who thinks critically about it for a minute let alone contact with reality. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote: To

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

To separate from the money for a bit, I think it is rather obvious that the value of anything is subjective, whether you are talking about the aesthetic value, monetary value, or moral value the relative value of items A and B are dependent upon the subject assigning value to it. What one person finds extremely valuable, another might not find valuable at all. You have yet to explain why we should assign equal value to all suffering. You have simply declared we should, when we clearly don't. It is as logical as if you declared that all paintings should have equal value and that a Van Gogh painting is equal value with a painting of equal size that you made.

Yeah, if I stub my toe it's gonna hurt a decent amount and piss me off, but if the martial arts dude who's been deliberately kicking hard things for years to harden his toes does it, he's just not gonna give a shit. I'm not arguing that all identical occurrences have equal value for everyone, I'm arguing that identical SENSATIONS do, and clearly in the example I just gave the two identical happenings do not produce identical sensations as one hurts a lot more. I've yet to see an argument from you people that doesn't commit this same error.

Now if we did have a way to precisely measure pain (which may not be impossible at all, it could be as simple in principle as monitoring electrical and/or chemical shit going on in the brain) then maybe we could actually measure it objectively between different individuals. The fact that those individuals may need different stimuli to reach the same amount of pain (which is where subjectivity comes in) does not mean that pain as a concept is subjective or that we can't objectively figure out which individual is hurt more by a certain stimulus.


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Manageri wrote:Yeah, if I

Manageri wrote:

Yeah, if I stub my toe it's gonna hurt a decent amount and piss me off, but if the martial arts dude who's been deliberately kicking hard things for years to harden his toes does it, he's just not gonna give a shit. I'm not arguing that all identical occurrences have equal value for everyone, I'm arguing that identical SENSATIONS do, and clearly in the example I just gave the two identical happenings do not produce identical sensations as one hurts a lot more. I've yet to see an argument from you people that doesn't commit this same error.

Now if we did have a way to precisely measure pain (which may not be impossible at all, it could be as simple in principle as monitoring electrical and/or chemical shit going on in the brain) then maybe we could actually measure it objectively between different individuals. The fact that those individuals may need different stimuli to reach the same amount of pain (which is where subjectivity comes in) does not mean that pain as a concept is subjective or that we can't objectively figure out which individual is hurt more by a certain stimulus.

The subjectivity is now in how much pain we experience, it is the importance we give to pain. Even on a human to human level, why should I give your pain/pleasure as much value as I give my pain/pleasure? Hate to break it to you, but with the possible exception of your mommy, no one in the world other than you gives a shit about your stubbed toe. Pretty much everyone in the world gives a shit about their own stubbed toe. Why should any of us care about your toe? Whether your toe is stubbed or not has absolutely no value, positive or negative, to anyone other than you and I cannot think of a good reason why it should and you certainly have not offered any good reasons to support your position.    

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:The

Beyond Saving wrote:

The subjectivity is now in how much pain we experience, it is the importance we give to pain.

Physical pain is just one form of suffering. Obviously if you find experiencing X amount of pain less bothersome than some other person then X amount of pain is not an equal sensation to you and hence not of equal value. If we have to give you 2X worth of pain to make you as miserable as the other guy then for you 2X pain = Y amount of suffering whereas for the other guy X pain = Y suffering, but in the end Y suffering is just as bad no matter who experiences it.

Quote:
Even on a human to human level, why should I give your pain/pleasure as much value as I give my pain/pleasure?

Because you recognize logically that we're identical biological machines and your suffering doesn't feel any different? How the fuck could you possibly make a logical argument that two identical sensations experienced by two essentially identical creatures can hold different value?

How about we get to the core of the issue and you just give me your ethical axiom(s).


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Manageri wrote:Quote:Even on

Manageri wrote:

Quote:
Even on a human to human level, why should I give your pain/pleasure as much value as I give my pain/pleasure?

Because you recognize logically that we're identical biological machines and your suffering doesn't feel any different?

1. I do not recognize that there are any two biological machines that are identical. I would go so far as to say that identical beings are an impossibility.  

2. My suffering feels very different to me than your suffering. When you stub your toe, I feel absolutely nothing. I also assume that when I stub my toe you feel nothing. Thus, it is perfectly logical that we each assign differing levels of value to each of the events because we perceive the very same event very differently. 

 

Manageri wrote:

How the fuck could you possibly make a logical argument that two identical sensations experienced by two essentially identical creatures can hold different value?

How can you make a logical argument that two unique creatures that perceive an event through different bodies would give the exact same value on the exact same event? Why would you assume that the value I give to my stubbed toe would be identical to the value you would give the very same stubbed toe (mine)? And then further carry that assumption that the value both you and I give my stubbed toe would be identical to the value we would both give to your stubbed toe? 

You apparently believe that I should assign the same value to you stubbing your toe as I would me stubbing my toe, but you have not offered a single reason as to why. You simply declare it as if it should be an obvious fact, it is not obvious. Give me one good reason why I should give even the smallest shit about you stubbing your toe. 

 

Manageri wrote:

How about we get to the core of the issue and you just give me your ethical axiom(s).

I don't have an axiom and I think that the idea that there is some universal ethical axiom is as absurd as the idea that there is a god. I view my ethical beliefs to be as relevant as my opinion of which women are more attractive than others. I neither care if, nor expect other people to have the same moral values as me.  

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Quote:It is precisely

Quote:
It is precisely because of the complexity that the idea that government can effectively regulate better than individuals involved in the situation is absurd

No one is claiming that. But you are nuts if you think the private sector never goes of the rails. Government is going to happen, otherwise you have a dictatorship, or a robber baron society like Somalia.

Our highway system is a result of government. The Hoover dam is a result of government. Defeating the Germans was a result of government.

You cannot have an all or nothing attitude. And your simple "get government out" ideology cannot work right now because of the climate of housing and bank gambling and treating the stock market as a casino. It is also the result of business having no sense of loyalty to this country. It has done everything to drive down wages and ship jobs overseas.

Now again, if you want "goverment out", then those at the top have the power to do so. There is a huge difference between "cant", and "don't want to". If you don't want the government telling you what to do, just like a fucking child, do it yourself, or eventually it will be done for you.

I've seen for the past 30 years what "self regulation" is, it is nothing but money equals power and fuck you I got mine. Been there done that, no thank you.

Just about every other nation in the west is kicking our ass in infrastructure, education and health care. Why? Because of investment. You're idea of investment is about you. Healthy economies are about those in the private sector caring about the societies they live in and not just their profit margins. I see nothing from big business that is showing me a damned thing that says that they care. Henry Ford would be an example of the private sector caring. If the majority of the private sector was like that, we never would have gotten into this mess.

But since the opposite is the case, and if you keep getting what you want, we too can have a slave wage economy just like India. Now once again, you want goverment out of your life, YOU have the power to contribute with something other than "get a job". Don't stand on the shoulders of those who work for you and then piss on them.

But the one thing you can never take from me is my right to vote, and if my guy wins, don't bitch while hypocritically valuing competition. There is more than one class in this country and we are getting tired of being shit on like we don't count.

 

 

 

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Brian37 wrote:I've seen for

Brian37 wrote:

I've seen for the past 30 years what "self regulation" is, it is nothing but money equals power and fuck you I got mine. Been there done that, no thank you.

Just about every other nation in the west is kicking our ass in infrastructure, education and health care. Why? Because of investment. You're idea of investment is about you. Healthy economies are about those in the private sector caring about the societies they live in and not just their profit margins. I see nothing from big business that is showing me a damned thing that says that they care. Henry Ford would be an example of the private sector caring. If the majority of the private sector was like that, we never would have gotten into this mess.

Ooh, I usually don't get involved in these conversations. 

Government is big business.  They are one of the largest employers, offer the most services and have the ability to discourage or promote competition.  Because I see government the way I do everything you say Brian rings true to my ears.

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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures. ~ The Devil's Dictionary


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Beyond Saving wrote:I don't

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't have an axiom and I think that the idea that there is some universal ethical axiom is as absurd as the idea that there is a god. I view my ethical beliefs to be as relevant as my opinion of which women are more attractive than others. I neither care if, nor expect other people to have the same moral values as me.  

This says it all. If you don't believe even in the concept of ethical rules then why the hell are you here arguing about ethics?

Quote:
My suffering feels very different to me than your suffering. When you stub your toe, I feel absolutely nothing. I also assume that when I stub my toe you feel nothing. Thus, it is perfectly logical that we each assign differing levels of value to each of the events because we perceive the very same event very differently.

Yes, if you're such a narcissitic ass that you only evaluate the worth of other sentient creatures based on how they might benefit you, then you really don't have a reason to give a shit about anything. Luckily most people don't glorify their selfish nature like you.


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Brian37 wrote:Quote:It is

Brian37 wrote:

Quote:
It is precisely because of the complexity that the idea that government can effectively regulate better than individuals involved in the situation is absurd

No one is claiming that. But you are nuts if you think the private sector never goes of the rails. Government is going to happen, otherwise you have a dictatorship, or a robber baron society like Somalia.

Um, yeah they are. Obamacare, prime example, take a massive industry and force it to conform to massive centralized regulations. The federal reserve, is all about centralizing control of our economy. You support every single government policy that puts more regulation on business. I have yet to see you say one time, "No that regulation is bad, get rid of it"   

 

Brian37 wrote:

Our highway system is a result of government. The Hoover dam is a result of government. Defeating the Germans was a result of government.

I would be dancing in the streets if the only things the government did was build infrastructure and fight important wars. Things that are specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Unfortunately, the government does thousands of other things. Have I ever argued against government building infrastructure or fighting wars? (I have argued against specific infrastructure and specific wars, but as a general rule I recognize it as a proper role of government) 

 

Brian37 wrote:

You cannot have an all or nothing attitude. And your simple "get government out" ideology cannot work right now because of the climate of housing and bank gambling and treating the stock market as a casino. It is also the result of business having no sense of loyalty to this country. It has done everything to drive down wages and ship jobs overseas.

Now again, if you want "goverment out", then those at the top have the power to do so. There is a huge difference between "cant", and "don't want to". If you don't want the government telling you what to do, just like a fucking child, do it yourself, or eventually it will be done for you.

I've seen for the past 30 years what "self regulation" is, it is nothing but money equals power and fuck you I got mine. Been there done that, no thank you.

Are you claiming that there was no centralized regulation of the housing market? That there was no centralized regulation of banks? The housing market is a great example of my point, one size fits all solutions to increasing home ownership caused massive damage because they ignored market pressure in various local areas. Keeping interest rates extremely low across the board (controlled by a central federal reserve), controlling the terms of loans through large centralized GSE's (Fanny & Freddie), and offering dozens of blanket incentives for companies to offer more and people to get more mortgages (in the form of centralized tax incentives) led to artificial inflation in the housing market. Rather than helping poor people purchase houses, all of these led to massive housing booms in middle-class/wealthier areas and overproduction. Even when it was obvious what was happening the government doubled down and injected more money/incentives in the market to increase artificial demand. It is insane. 

 

Brian37 wrote:
 

Just about every other nation in the west is kicking our ass in infrastructure, education and health care. Why? Because of investment. You're idea of investment is about you. Healthy economies are about those in the private sector caring about the societies they live in and not just their profit margins. I see nothing from big business that is showing me a damned thing that says that they care. Henry Ford would be an example of the private sector caring. If the majority of the private sector was like that, we never would have gotten into this mess.

Our infrastructure, education and healthcare have become increasingly centralized. When we had the best infrastructure, the best education and the best healthcare most of the regulation and control came from state level governments. Instead we are moving everything the the federal government, including which fucking bridges need repaired. Who do you think is better able to determine when to repair a fucking bridge? The people living in the community, or Obama? Who is in a better situation to do something to improve local schools, the people who live in the area, or Obama? Who is in a better position to single out people who really need help from those who don't, people who live in a local area, or Obama? 

And claiming it is a matter of "investment" is laughable. We throw more money at every problem than most other countries combined. There is no shortage of money flying around, the problem is that the money is all being spent for Washington D.C. and being spent in mostly inefficient ways. We have "invested" trillions of dollars over the last few years and we haven't gotten shit for it. Trying to control a country as large as the US from on city is absurd. We are a huge country, Washington D.C. cannot possibly be the source of the solutions to all of our problems. Yet idiots like you will continue to turn to them, thinking you are going to get your "free" healthcare and that somehow, Bama is going to make your paycheck bigger. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Brian37 wrote:ThunderJones

Brian37 wrote:

ThunderJones wrote:

You guys are both getting out of hand. Can't you disagree without throwing never-ending streams of personal attacks against each other? It is one thing to respond to an attack, but this is getting really stupid.

Then I would advise you not to get between Beyond Saving and I. At least when we are beating the shit out of each other on economic issues. We are on the same page as far as the existence of god, and we both watch sports to some degree, and that bastard owes this commie a beer.

The verbal shit hitting the fan is harmless compared to the actually reality of the club mentality our species has suffered from. I used to be against the sport of boxing, and still am. But it depends. I am against it because it DOES cause physical harm. But being a smoker and drinker, how can be that much of a hypocrite? I hate boxing, but some people dont. I don't think debate should be any different. If the two parties involved know it is just words, then let them do it.

I know in reality, as much as Beyond Saving hates my economic positions, and as much as I hate his, I doubt very seriously either of us would pass the other after a car accident and say "I hate him, let him die".

I hate more a PC atheist OR theist, than I do an atheist or theist who is not PC who understand that after all the blather, a bar, and a sporting event and a pint can unify both of us.

 

You guys stay pretty civil compared to these other two. I've noticed that atleast Beyond seems to refuse to lose it and start throwing insults out like halloween candy. No offense, Brian, but you freak out a lot in my opinion. I don't really mind it, I was just trying to say that Manageri and the other guy were kind losing of the reasonable part of the discussion imo.

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ThunderJones wrote: You

ThunderJones wrote:

 

You guys stay pretty civil compared to these other two. I've noticed that atleast Beyond seems to refuse to lose it and start throwing insults out like halloween candy. No offense, Brian, but you freak out a lot in my opinion. I don't really mind it, I was just trying to say that Manageri and the other guy were kind losing of the reasonable part of the discussion imo.

To me there is a difference in a heated debate and just plain mud-flinging.

As much as I would like to tell some of the people in my local newsforums to stick it up their asses, I think it is better to keep a cool head and hit them with a bunch of logic and reason.

I can ridicule an opponent's ad hominems with intellect and feel like I come out on top everytime. I can also ridicule an opponent's ad homs and make them appear extremely foolish.

But that is just my formula for debating.

“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


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 i just love it when

 i just love it when inflatable arnolds make an appearance.  The other thread with them in was hilarious. 


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Manageri wrote:Beyond Saving

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't have an axiom and I think that the idea that there is some universal ethical axiom is as absurd as the idea that there is a god. I view my ethical beliefs to be as relevant as my opinion of which women are more attractive than others. I neither care if, nor expect other people to have the same moral values as me.  

This says it all. If you don't believe even in the concept of ethical rules then why the hell are you here arguing about ethics?

Because you are arguing that you have a moral axiom that is more rational than everyone else's and that we should all adopt it. Notice how I have not suggested that you adopt any of my moral views. You have yet to offer a single reason why I should adopt your morality, yet you have said that everyone should. Why?

 

Manageri wrote:

Yes, if you're such a narcissitic ass that you only evaluate the worth of other sentient creatures based on how they might benefit you, then you really don't have a reason to give a shit about anything. Luckily most people don't glorify their selfish nature like you.

On the contrary, I have reason to give a shit about a lot but I will freely admit that I give a shit for things because of my selfishness. Based on my experience, the vast majority (probably all) of people act out of selfishness- that is that they do things because they get something out of it. Exactly what they get varies, it might be for material things, emotional satisfaction, physical satisfaction or some combination. I believe that being honest is far better than being dishonest in most circumstances, so if most people do not recognize or admit the selfish nature of their actions, I think it would be better if they did, especially to themselves.

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:Because

Beyond Saving wrote:

Because you are arguing that you have a moral axiom that is more rational than everyone else's and that we should all adopt it. Notice how I have not suggested that you adopt any of my moral views. You have yet to offer a single reason why I should adopt your morality, yet you have said that everyone should. Why?

I need to rationally defend why suffering sucks? Seriously? If you don't have that figured out from personal experience then I really can't help you. The rest of it comes from the simple recognition that none of us are in any way special, meaning that regardless of whether it's a guy in China or a guy in Russia getting mauled by a bear, getting mauled is just as bad. It also really doesn't matter in the big picture whether it's my conciousness experiencing the mauling or someone else's, it's still just as bad for the conciousness in question, which is just as valuable as any other. If you can't see why you're not any more important than others then I really can't help you with that either. If it's your honest assessment of reality that only you matter then you're right, I really can't give you a reason to give a shit about ethics at all.

Luckily there are people who do think others matter and they're the ones who should really be arguing with me.


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Manageri wrote:Beyond Saving

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't have an axiom and I think that the idea that there is some universal ethical axiom is as absurd as the idea that there is a god. I view my ethical beliefs to be as relevant as my opinion of which women are more attractive than others. I neither care if, nor expect other people to have the same moral values as me.  

This says it all. If you don't believe even in the concept of ethical rules then why the hell are you here arguing about ethics?

Quote:
My suffering feels very different to me than your suffering. When you stub your toe, I feel absolutely nothing. I also assume that when I stub my toe you feel nothing. Thus, it is perfectly logical that we each assign differing levels of value to each of the events because we perceive the very same event very differently.

Yes, if you're such a narcissitic ass that you only evaluate the worth of other sentient creatures based on how they might benefit you, then you really don't have a reason to give a shit about anything. Luckily most people don't glorify their selfish nature like you.

I think he does give a shit. I think he really thinks that what he wants is totally different than what I want, when the reality is that we both want the same thing. To be happy. The only problem I have with him is that he does think his economic position gives him the right to not give a shit about others. History is not on his side long term when it comes to that, no matter the point in history. You may be top dog for a while, by class, or political party or via force, but the alpha male in evolution never stays there forever. The ones the civil secular west values are the ones who value both political and economic pluralism. He drives me nuts thinking that everyone can live in a mansion when physically that is absurd because if everyone did no one would build them.

Outside economics, I find very little if anything I have ever disagreed with him on. I like him as a person, but that is because I separate issues. His economic views are not all aspects of his life, just one.

One thing I have noticed, even with my own life. When one is young, we are full of hormones and ideology, but I have seen, in my Prior bosses face(an old retired cop who bought the breakfast place I work at, but has since sold it), and that same look in my own mothers face. I hate that it takes humans that long to get to the point of realizing that we really are all in this together and we really are all individuals.

My prior owner came to eat last week. And his handshake and smile were sincere and he the rich guy, was shaking my hand, the dishwasher, not as titles, but I could see that look "Damn Brian, I was lucky to have you as an employee". He missed me, but not just me, everyone that worked there. There was a look of appreciation that was genuine that I had not seen before. It meant more to me than my pay raises. When you give others the dignity of validation, it goes a long way.

Without accusing Beyond of anything. I do think age makes one more aware of what is important. Right now he thinks money is. But my prior boss is most likely going to eventually die from testicular cancer. I think he realizes now, facing that illness, "you cant take it with you". While some people never learn that lesson, out of all the people I do like, I really hope Beyond does. I don't want him second guessing business ownership, and I damned sure don't want him to end up poor. But I do think he is misguided as to how to be an individual, how to minimize government intrusion.

I think Beyond truly believes what he believes. I hate the fact he believes it. But I don't nor will ever hate him, knowing our history here. Before I die, I want to have a beer with him over a football game and bitch slap him verbally. He's paying.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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Manageri wrote:Beyond Saving

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

I don't have an axiom and I think that the idea that there is some universal ethical axiom is as absurd as the idea that there is a god. I view my ethical beliefs to be as relevant as my opinion of which women are more attractive than others. I neither care if, nor expect other people to have the same moral values as me.  

This says it all. If you don't believe even in the concept of ethical rules then why the hell are you here arguing about ethics?

Quote:
My suffering feels very different to me than your suffering. When you stub your toe, I feel absolutely nothing. I also assume that when I stub my toe you feel nothing. Thus, it is perfectly logical that we each assign differing levels of value to each of the events because we perceive the very same event very differently.

Yes, if you're such a narcissitic ass that you only evaluate the worth of other sentient creatures based on how they might benefit you, then you really don't have a reason to give a shit about anything. Luckily most people don't glorify their selfish nature like you.

I think he does give a shit. I think he really thinks that what he wants is totally different than what I want, when the reality is that we both want the same thing. To be happy. The only problem I have with him is that he does think his economic position gives him the right to not give a shit about others. History is not on his side long term when it comes to that, no matter the point in history. You may be top dog for a while, by class, or political party or via force, but the alpha male in evolution never stays there forever. The ones the civil secular west values are the ones who value both political and economic pluralism. He drives me nuts thinking that everyone can live in a mansion when physically that is absurd because if everyone did no one would build them.

Outside economics, I find very little if anything I have ever disagreed with him on. I like him as a person, but that is because I separate issues. His economic views are not all aspects of his life, just one.

One thing I have noticed, even with my own life. When one is young, we are full of hormones and ideology, but I have seen, in my Prior bosses face(an old retired cop who bought the breakfast place I work at, but has since sold it), and that same look in my own mothers face. I hate that it takes humans that long to get to the point of realizing that we really are all in this together and we really are all individuals.

My prior owner came to eat last week. And his handshake and smile were sincere and he the rich guy, was shaking my hand, the dishwasher, not as titles, but I could see that look "Damn Brian, I was lucky to have you as an employee". He missed me, but not just me, everyone that worked there. There was a look of appreciation that was genuine that I had not seen before. It meant more to me than my pay raises. When you give others the dignity of validation, it goes a long way.

Without accusing Beyond of anything. I do think age makes one more aware of what is important. Right now he thinks money is. But my prior boss is most likely going to eventually die from testicular cancer. I think he realizes now, facing that illness, "you cant take it with you". While some people never learn that lesson, out of all the people I do like, I really hope Beyond does. I don't want him second guessing business ownership, and I damned sure don't want him to end up poor. But I do think he is misguided as to how to be an individual, how to minimize government intrusion.

I think Beyond truly believes what he believes. I hate the fact he believes it. But I don't nor will ever hate him, knowing our history here. Before I die, I want to have a beer with him over a football game and bitch slap him verbally. He's paying.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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Manageri wrote:Beyond Saving

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

Because you are arguing that you have a moral axiom that is more rational than everyone else's and that we should all adopt it. Notice how I have not suggested that you adopt any of my moral views. You have yet to offer a single reason why I should adopt your morality, yet you have said that everyone should. Why?

I need to rationally defend why suffering sucks? Seriously? If you don't have that figured out from personal experience then I really can't help you. The rest of it comes from the simple recognition that none of us are in any way special, meaning that regardless of whether it's a guy in China or a guy in Russia getting mauled by a bear, getting mauled is just as bad. It also really doesn't matter in the big picture whether it's my conciousness experiencing the mauling or someone else's, it's still just as bad for the conciousness in question, which is just as valuable as any other. If you can't see why you're not any more important than others then I really can't help you with that either. If it's your honest assessment of reality that only you matter then you're right, I really can't give you a reason to give a shit about ethics at all.

Luckily there are people who do think others matter and they're the ones who should really be arguing with me.

No, you need to rationally explain why suffering is a rational basis upon which to base all your morality and why all suffering should be valued equally. There are a lot of people that I simply wouldn't care if they were mauled by a bear, there are a lot of people I would care a little about if they were mauled by a bear and there are some people I would care very much if they were mauled by a bear and a small handful I would care more about being mauled than myself being mauled. And I certainly don't give half a shit about a seal being mauled by a bear. Why should I value the suffering of a seal being mauled the same amount I would value a loved one being mauled? Why should I value some scumbag being mauled as much as some nice innocent hiker?

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:No, you

Beyond Saving wrote:

No, you need to rationally explain why suffering is a rational basis upon which to base all your morality and why all suffering should be valued equally.

Are you seriously suggesting there's some reason to think suffering shouldn't be a basis for ethics? It's not obvious to you that the only thing we need to give a shit about as sentient creatures is our welfare? We don't bring rocks in from the rain or read poetry to them because we know the only things with any value in the universe are sentient beings, or can you name me one thing you spend money on that doesn't somehow have to do with your welfare (or of someone you care about)? If not for the existence of sentience the universe would be completely devoid of value.

As for why all suffering should be valued equally, I think I've explained this a few times already. There's nothing special about me so why would my welfare be worth more than anyone else's? If the deal is that either I get kicked in the balls or two other people do, the right thing for me to do is to accept getting kicked in the balls because that means less suffering overall. I really don't see a way out of that logic without either asserting that I'm worth more than other people or that there's no such thing as value so I might as well arbitrarily spare my own nuts, and both those options seem ludicrous to me.

 


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Manageri wrote:Beyond Saving

Manageri wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

No, you need to rationally explain why suffering is a rational basis upon which to base all your morality and why all suffering should be valued equally.

Are you seriously suggesting there's some reason to think suffering shouldn't be a basis for ethics? It's not obvious to you that the only thing we need to give a shit about as sentient creatures is our welfare? We don't bring rocks in from the rain or read poetry to them because we know the only things with any value in the universe are sentient beings, or can you name me one thing you spend money on that doesn't somehow have to do with your welfare (or of someone you care about)? If not for the existence of sentience the universe would be completely devoid of value.

As for why all suffering should be valued equally, I think I've explained this a few times already. There's nothing special about me so why would my welfare be worth more than anyone else's? If the deal is that either I get kicked in the balls or two other people do, the right thing for me to do is to accept getting kicked in the balls because that means less suffering overall. I really don't see a way out of that logic without either asserting that I'm worth more than other people or that there's no such thing as value so I might as well arbitrarily spare my own nuts, and both those options seem ludicrous to me.

 

He is right in that he is worth more, but only in the context that he makes more. If he ever figures that out, I would not only become gay, I would marry him. He's a good guy and has good intent, but we all know where that leads.

Death is the great equalizer and takes the heads of state, friend and fo, rich and poor, with out compunction and rightfully shits on our own narcissism and predilections. Sagan and Shakespeare got it right. In the full scope of the universe to think we are special for any reason, other than the pittance of time we exist compared to the universe, our humility as a species is underwhelming. We are special to ourselves and those we live with and the like minds we flock to. Evolution would not occur if we did not do that. But we as a species have always been collective fools in thinking that there will be a cosmic monument to our blip of existence.

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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Brian37 wrote:The only

Brian37 wrote:

The only problem I have with him is that he does think his economic position gives him the right to not give a shit about others.

 

    Beyond's economic status has nothing to do with his empathy for others.  There are plenty of "filthy" capitalists who are major philanthropists ( Bill Gates ) and who despite their staggering wealth manage to contribute greatly to charitable organizations.   There are also plenty of so-called working class people who wouldn't let you use their phone to save your life if it took a few minutes away from watching Jerry Springer or American Idol. .

 

 

         Rich or poor, a person's economic status has nothing to with their sense of compassion or how they view others. 

 

         Besides Brian, if you became wealthy would you suddenly lose your current values and stop caring about other people ?

 

 


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Manageri wrote:Are you

Manageri wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting there's some reason to think suffering shouldn't be a basis for ethics? It's not obvious to you that the only thing we need to give a shit about as sentient creatures is our welfare?

That is not obvious at all. I think life is far more enjoyable if you give a shit about a whole lot of other things. When you are in a situation where you must care only for your welfare, life generally sucks. Also, your statement is quite at odds with your professed philosophy, there is a difference between saying as sentient creatures we give a shit about our welfare and saying that we should give a shit about all other sentient creatures welfare.   

 

Manageri wrote:

We don't bring rocks in from the rain or read poetry to them because we know the only things with any value in the universe are sentient beings, or can you name me one thing you spend money on that doesn't somehow have to do with your welfare (or of someone you care about)? If not for the existence of sentience the universe would be completely devoid of value.

Sometimes people put a great deal more value on rocks than they do people, let alone animals. You are right, without sentience the universe is devoid of value, because value is subjective and only exists in a sentient mind- that is what everyone has been arguing with you all along. The values you assign to suffering do not exist outside of your head so you can hardly be surprised that others hold different values. 

 

Manageri wrote:

As for why all suffering should be valued equally, I think I've explained this a few times already. There's nothing special about me so why would my welfare be worth more than anyone else's? If the deal is that either I get kicked in the balls or two other people do, the right thing for me to do is to accept getting kicked in the balls because that means less suffering overall.

Why is less suffering overall the measure? I don't see how a world with less suffering is necessarily better in all situations. Given the choice of kicking two jerks in the balls or one really nice guy, I would kick the jerks and I suspect that most people would agree. Suppose for example that you are given the choice of kicking Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity in the balls or just kicking one random passerby on the street in the balls- I suspect that most of us would pay to kick the former and consider it the moral decision.  

Saying that less suffering overall should be the measure simply because you arbitrarily decided it should be is not enough. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:Manageri

Beyond Saving wrote:

Manageri wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting there's some reason to think suffering shouldn't be a basis for ethics? It's not obvious to you that the only thing we need to give a shit about as sentient creatures is our welfare?

That is not obvious at all. I think life is far more enjoyable if you give a shit about a whole lot of other things. When you are in a situation where you must care only for your welfare, life generally sucks.

You seem to be interpreting welfare to mean having to worry about our very basic needs and other such dull crap, but I mean it as a term that encompasses all our sensations.

Quote:
Also, your statement is quite at odds with your professed philosophy, there is a difference between saying as sentient creatures we give a shit about our welfare and saying that we should give a shit about all other sentient creatures welfare.

That's what I meant, I just worded it badly. "We" as sentients only have reason to care about "us" sentients, meaning that sentient welfare is the only thing of value in the universe.

 

Quote:
Sometimes people put a great deal more value on rocks than they do people, let alone animals. You are right, without sentience the universe is devoid of value, because value is subjective and only exists in a sentient mind- that is what everyone has been arguing with you all along. The values you assign to suffering do not exist outside of your head so you can hardly be surprised that others hold different values.

Yeah, a person might care about a rock because it makes a great dildo or whatever, that's in no way in opposition to anything I've said. The value there is still generated by the conciousness, not the rock.

The value of suffering does not exist in my head, only the recognition of that value does. If there's a woman getting raped in my backyard at the moment it's completely irrelevant whether I am aware of it or not, there's still (negative) value in the suffering of the rape victim.

 

Quote:
Why is less suffering overall the measure? I don't see how a world with less suffering is necessarily better in all situations. Given the choice of kicking two jerks in the balls or one really nice guy, I would kick the jerks and I suspect that most people would agree.

They'd agree because they're typical human morons, not because they have some reasonable philosophical justification. Unless me kicking the jerks does something about their jerkyness then what possible reason could I have for assigning less value to their pain? Does it make the world a better place that they got kicked in the balls? Obviously not, so what rational reason is there to choose the jerks over the nice guy?

Quote:
Suppose for example that you are given the choice of kicking Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity in the balls or just kicking one random passerby on the street in the balls- I suspect that most of us would pay to kick the former and consider it the moral decision.

I might pay to kick Bill if I'm drunk enough but that does not mean I necessarily think it'd be ethical, it'd only mean I'm being a dick.

Quote:
Saying that less suffering overall should be the measure simply because you arbitrarily decided it should be is not enough.

It would be silly to assert that suffering has negative value and then say less suffering isn't necessarily better, unless of course you can provide some other standard that's more important than welfare.


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Manageri wrote:They'd agree

Manageri wrote:

They'd agree because they're typical human morons, not because they have some reasonable philosophical justification. Unless me kicking the jerks does something about their jerkyness then what possible reason could I have for assigning less value to their pain? Does it make the world a better place that they got kicked in the balls? Obviously not, so what rational reason is there to choose the jerks over the nice guy?

The issue was you got to pick between two jerks and a nice guy. Surely the two jerks are the superior choice? Not only are you enacting some measure of just punishment upon the jerks, but you are also saving the nice guy from a completely unjust punishment.

Would you say that there should be no form of punishment, even if it won't make them better? The idea is others will hesitate to harm others based on that punishment.

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Manageri wrote:That's what I

Manageri wrote:

That's what I meant, I just worded it badly. "We" as sentients only have reason to care about "us" sentients, meaning that sentient welfare is the only thing of value in the universe.

Really? What reason do we sentients have to care about us sentients as a group?

 

Manageri wrote:

Quote:
Why is less suffering overall the measure? I don't see how a world with less suffering is necessarily better in all situations. Given the choice of kicking two jerks in the balls or one really nice guy, I would kick the jerks and I suspect that most people would agree.

They'd agree because they're typical human morons, not because they have some reasonable philosophical justification. Unless me kicking the jerks does something about their jerkyness then what possible reason could I have for assigning less value to their pain? Does it make the world a better place that they got kicked in the balls? Obviously not, so what rational reason is there to choose the jerks over the nice guy?

I'm still waiting for you wonderful philosophical justification that goes beyond "because it is".  Rational reason for kicking the jerks? Because they deserve it and it makes me feel better, while kicking the innocent guy makes me feel worse, as a rational being I prefer actions that make me feel better over those that make me feel worse. It seems perfectly rational to me that a being would choose the actions that make it feel better over those that make if feel worse. 

 

Manageri wrote:

Quote:
Saying that less suffering overall should be the measure simply because you arbitrarily decided it should be is not enough.

It would be silly to assert that suffering has negative value and then say less suffering isn't necessarily better, unless of course you can provide some other standard that's more important than welfare.

It is rather silly to declare that suffering has a universal value, yet you have done so. It seems rather silly to have a single standard upon which to have a moral system and declare it objective and rational.   

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Manageri wrote:Actually it'd

Manageri wrote:
Actually it'd be far more principled for me to starve you to death seeing as you're one of the assholes causing the problems.


I’d love to see you try – but, come on, answer the point, tell me how your conscience can allow you to accept hand outs from an animal-abusing society?

Quote:
If you don't understand how our desires can make us do things we later consider unethical then you're just too fucking stupid for words. You get drunk, you beat your wife, you wake up feeling like an asshole - not complicated.


So your ethical code says it’s ok to beat your wife so long as you regret it afterwards – I bet  that argument’s got you off the hook a few times.  If you beat your wife you’re an asshole period.  This retrospective morality is bullshit.


Quote:
You also still seem to be unable to understand that me saying pleasure over pain means FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED, not one asshole like you doing whatever the fuck feels good to him at the cost of others' misery. Actually I don't think it's a lack of understanding, you're just such a fucking weasel you have to deliberately misinterpret everything to avoid dealing with the real argument.


I understand you perfectly – you want to assert that everyone’s suffering is worth the same objectively.  But to try and prove this you appeal to our sensations.  You say that we all prefer pleasure to pain – agreed.  But you then say ‘so everyone’s pain should be of equal value’.  This is where we disagree, because you haven’t said why this should be the case.  Your argument is effectively ‘it’s’ of equal value because everyone suffers – but the one doesn’t follow from the other, and you’ve produced no argument or evidence as to why it should.  Indeed you’ve ignored the very evidence that is staring you in the face i.e. that our emotions tell us that our own suffering or that of those we care about is worth more than a stranger’s.  This is hypocritical as well as dishonest, because the one piece of evidence you have produced relies precisely on those same emotions to tell us that we prefer pleasure to pain.  Yes, they tell us that, but they also tell us that our own suffering counts for more than others’ suffering but you just conveniently ignore that bit as it doesn’t support your argument. 

So your argument for the equality of suffering isn’t based on anything at all – in fact it isn’t an argument as for you ‘equality’ is simply a given moral good – you’re so up your lefty, right-on, politically correct, fake-caring asshole that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the general principle of ‘equality’ which is all that it is, is, per se, immoral.  And you come on here, pretending that you’ve got some kind of ‘argument’?  You’ve got nothing, other than a few tired platitudes – why don’t you just shut the fuck up, you snivelling little second-rater?  Intellectually, you’re a boy trying to pass yourself off as a man.  But I suppose we should forgive the folly of youth – I’ve seen your sort before.  At twenty, they’re blustering about human (and animal) rights, Wall Street and the evils of capitalism.  At forty, they’re married with three kids and a house in the suburbs, having a barbie every Sunday afternoon and working in financial services.

Quote:
Explain how I argued our DNA isn't responsible for producing our intelligence.


You said that our intelligence can ‘override’ our DNA.  But if our DNA produces our intelligence how can it override our DNA without coming from somewhere else?  The thing in our intelligence that is overriding our DNA,must have been produced by our DNA, so how is it ‘overriding’ our DNA?  It either must come from somewhere else or it can’t override our DNA at all.  If our DNA produces our intelligence to say our intelligence can override our DNA is simply to say our DNA can override our DNA which is nonsensical.

Quote:
The point, fucknut, is that our DNA is responsible for producing all kinds of idiotic shit in our psychology, like the feeling that the people with a different skin color are somehow not just as human or in some way less important. Our intelligence, despite the fact it was produced by our DNA just like our idiotic psychology, is capable of seeing past these idiotic notions and overriding them in our decision making process to a large degree. I really don't believe you can't see the difference between psychology and intelligence so I can only assume this is yet another weasely game of yours.


Yeah, I was waiting for you to tell us how right-on you were about racial equality.  Funnily enough you haven’t mentioned women’s rights yet or the evils of capitalism, or green energy.  When are you going to get round to that?  I’ve already dealt with your puerile argument that the intelligence can override the DNA that produced it.  Now I learn that this intelligence is also separate from, although no doubt inextricably linked, to our ‘psychology’.  Really?  Someone better rush out and tell Professor Steven Pinker, I think he’ll be aghast.

Fucking hell, Manageri, son – you’re hot!  Not only have you re-written the basic tenets of moral philosophy, you’re now making a major contribution to psychology too.  Where’s it gonna end?  Please can we have your thoughts on linguistics and epistemology?  And what about physics – any new insights there?

Quote:
There really is little difference in a nihilist asshole saying there is no value and you subjectivist assholes saying everyone decides for themselves what everything is worth.
Nihilist: kicking babies is meaningless one way or the other.
Subjectivist: my desire to know whether or not my shoe can handle kicking ten thousand babies is more important than the pain of the babies.
Both positions are for spineless cunts like you who can't handle being judged for the assholes they are.


Subjectivist: I make no presumption what is right for other people.

Objectivist: I know what is right for other people.

Nihilist: Other people can go to hell.

Which one is the most dangerous?  Which category do most dictators, religious bigots, moral bullies and loud-mouthed lefty little scumbags fit into?

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If you dealt with them when you first read them you wouldn’t have to, fuckface.

No, I would and I did, it’s just that when you’re dealing with someone who’s educationally subnormal you have to repeat your answers many times – you’ll get it eventually – don’t give up.

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I admitted something of the sort where exactly?

Where I just typed it above, moron, you said you don’t CARE about my $100 as much as yours!  Why is that, if they are both of equal value?

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Let’s not.  You know exactly what I mean you fucking weasel.  If two people getting kicked in the balls feel the exact same pain then it’s equally wrong to kick them in the balls, all other relevant things being equal.

Ha, ha,ha, ‘all other relevant things being equal’?  And what would these be exactly, my back-tracking, hypocritical genius?  Things like who the aggressor was and whether it was in self-defence and how hard the kick was by any chance?  You know all those inconvenient subjective little details you said we could forget about when judging if suffering was ‘equal’?  You fucking idiot.

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And a while back the majority felt black people are nothing but fucktarded savages meant to work for the white man. Was the fact people thought that in any fucking way relevant to what the ethical way to treat black people actually was? "Let's ask the retards" is not a productive way of doing ethics, if you can't see why then you are one of the retards we shouldn't be asking.


Ah yes, bringing in black people again to back up your credentials as a champion of the oppressed, just in case we’d forgotten.  So are you saying that 200 years ago a black person’s life was only worth as much as a chicken’s today?  That sounds racist to me – steady on now boyo, that’s going too far, surely?  People who tend to characterise great swathes of the populace as retards for not agreeing with their views on animal suffering tend to be just the same sort of people who 200 years ago characterised people as ‘retards’ because of their colour.

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So you think concern for suffering, fairness and equality are bullshit ideas?  I really don’t need to add anything to this, the assholery speaks for itself.

As supposedly objective ideas, yeah, they’re bullshit.  They don’t mean anything objectively.  People don’t think of suffering in the abstract in the way that some two-bit, bullshitting bar-room philosopher does, they think of it subjectively, what it means to them first, then their family, community, society next.  That’s what little lefties like you will never understand, and why your ideas will never get put into practice democratically – you’re gonna have to work for a communist revolution my little pinko friend.

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That's right, I really don't have an argument for why welfare matters, and I don't care. Are you gonna tell me you disagree? Go ahead, tell me you actually believe that suffering is entirely meaningless when it comes to deciding how to treat each other in the real world.


I’ve covered this above.  Obviously I don’t care a fuck about you or your welfare – the sooner you starve yourself to death the better – you haven’t answered why you’re not going to do that.  You deserve no Welfare at all.

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Which you did nothing to argue against. If you don't think that sentient welfare is a good ethical axiom then why don't you tell me what is. Oh that's right, you subjectivist assholes can only ever cry about how other people's axioms suck, you never have the balls to actually state your own since you know you'd either have to make it something preposterous like "I'm worth as much as ten million other creatures in every respect", or you'd be shown to be an inconsistent asshole if you made it something reasonable. Prove me wrong, fucker.


I’ve already done so but because you’re educationally subnormal, here it is again.  I think that my own welfare is good, that of my family is good also (although slightly less) that of my community, society, country’s good in descending scale of value.  Got it? Not difficult is it?

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Because bananas and turds can't suffer, you fucking mongoloid. Quite obviously when I write an equation where there's only one thing with welfare you can't equate it with an equation where one thing gets its pleasure from torturing something else, you useless piece of weasel shit.


But you said that ‘as long as you accept the premise of pleasure being better than suffering then there isn’t a goddamn thing about this logic that isn’t objective’.  So I’ve just substituted pedo and children for the monkey and banana in your syllogism – but you don’t accept the conclusion.  So this logic does not work ‘objectively’ does it my little scumbag friend, huh?  Go on, tell me how it works?


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I think it's you who still doesn't get it. You keep arguing that the EQUAL SUFFERING of two different entities does not have EQUAL VALUE. You think that when you have a broken leg, it's horrible, but when someone else does it's irrelevant.


Yeah, that’s right my little fuck-witted one, my suffering has enormous value and yours has none at all. I’m flattered that for you, my suffering has as much value as your own – I was beginning to think you didn’t care about me.  I guess I’d never realised before what a caring sort of guy you are.


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So we're back to this shit again? Yeah, keep arguing that my 100 bucks is worth less than yours, you only make yourself look more retarded every time.


Hey, I hope you’re not running out of steam, my little St. Francis of Assisi.  Your posts are getting shorter and shorter, your arguments more and more repetitive, your abuse louder and more desperate.  Don’t admit defeat chap – just think, all those little animals out there are depending on you fella, to put the big, bad world to rights.  Ah yes, and all the minorities too and the dispossessed, the weak, the hungry – don’t let them all down when you’re the only one who cares about them.


Of course you’ll come back in half an hour with another screed of shit that came off the top of your head (or should I say outta the back of your ass). How about taking a bit of time thinking about your answers this time then you’ll see you haven’t got any.
 

I quote no 'authorities'. I speak in my own words. I bring everything to the bar of my own judgment.


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                                     Wow, that's what I call a rebuttal.

 

 


Manageri
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ThunderJones wrote:The issue

ThunderJones wrote:

The issue was you got to pick between two jerks and a nice guy. Surely the two jerks are the superior choice? Not only are you enacting some measure of just punishment upon the jerks, but you are also saving the nice guy from a completely unjust punishment.

Would you say that there should be no form of punishment, even if it won't make them better? The idea is others will hesitate to harm others based on that punishment.

Obviously if the act of kicking the jerks has the effect of making people act less like jerks then that consequence has to be taken into account. The thought experiment didn't contain such a clause though, I even mentioned in my response that I'm assuming kicking the jerks does not make them act less like jerks. If we broadcast the jerk kicking all over the world and tell people this'll happen to them too if they act like jerks then that entirely changes the thought experiment.

So why don't you answer the thought experiment as it was intended: If you can kick two assholes or one nice guy and no one will ever know it happened nor will it in any way change the world, what is your rational justification for choosing to impose greater pain than necessary by choosing to kick the two jerks?

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Really? What reason do we sentients have to care about us sentients as a group?

None if we all have your philosophy where only you matter. I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, if you don't give a shit about others then there's absolutely nothing I can say to you that will convince you that you should. My arguments are aimed at people who do think others matter. You're essentially asking me to bridge the is-ought gap for you and that's impossible.

 

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Rational reason for kicking the jerks? Because they deserve it

We don't have free will, hence the concept of deserving anything doesn't ultimately make sense. The only rational reason I can see for punishing assholes is to prevent them and others from committing more assholery.

 

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It is rather silly to declare that suffering has a universal value, yet you have done so. It seems rather silly to have a single standard upon which to have a moral system and declare it objective and rational.

Having many standards is somehow inherently more rational?


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Mr C O Jones wrote:tell me

Mr C O Jones wrote:
tell me how your conscience can allow you to accept hand outs from an animal-abusing society?

So vegans should refuse anything from society so the animal abusing assholes can use those resources instead to abuse more animals? Moronic as usual.

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So your ethical code says it’s ok to beat your wife so long as you regret it afterwards – I bet  that argument’s got you off the hook a few times.  If you beat your wife you’re an asshole period.  This retrospective morality is bullshit.

No, fuckface, I was responding to you claiming that if we do something then we must consider it ethical. I then gave an example of how that's moronic. You then, in your typical weasely strawmanning manner, try to twist that into me saying beating your wife is ok. You're a pathetic slandering, lying asshole that's unable to have an honest argument.


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You also still seem to be unable to understand that me saying pleasure over pain means FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED, not one asshole like you doing whatever the fuck feels good to him at the cost of others' misery. Actually I don't think it's a lack of understanding, you're just such a fucking weasel you have to deliberately misinterpret everything to avoid dealing with the real argument.


I understand you perfectly – you want to assert that everyone’s suffering is worth the same objectively.  But to try and prove this you appeal to our sensations.  You say that we all prefer pleasure to pain – agreed.  But you then say ‘so everyone’s pain should be of equal value’.  This is where we disagree, because you haven’t said why this should be the case.  Your argument is effectively ‘it’s’ of equal value because everyone suffers – but the one doesn’t follow from the other, and you’ve produced no argument or evidence as to why it should.  Indeed you’ve ignored the very evidence that is staring you in the face i.e. that our emotions tell us that our own suffering or that of those we care about is worth more than a stranger’s.  This is hypocritical as well as dishonest, because the one piece of evidence you have produced relies precisely on those same emotions to tell us that we prefer pleasure to pain.  Yes, they tell us that, but they also tell us that our own suffering counts for more than others’ suffering but you just conveniently ignore that bit as it doesn’t support your argument.

Our emotions have nothing to do with why pain feels bad, our brain produces that sensation entirely regardless of our emotional state. The reason everyone's suffering must have equal value is that without that standard you have absolutely no grounds for making any kind of useful ethical argument. If all seven billion people only value their own welfare then obviously we have seven billion contradictory standards, meaning that all but one (and more likely all) are necessarily WRONG.

What you people don't seem to understand is that the fact our preferences are subjective does not mean no objective statements can be made about them. If I say red is the prettiest color and you say it's blue, those statements are subjective, but the fact that we each have a favorite color is objective. If we each prefer lollipops with our favorite color then it's OBJECTIVELY true that it's best for me to get a red lollipop and it's best for you to get a blue one. You can say that you don't give a shit whether I get my red lollipop but that does nothing to invalidate the OBJECTIVE truth that it's still best for me to get my red goddamn lollipop.

The part where you cross over into bullshit-land is when you accuse me of trying to impose my standards on others, as if I'm trying to force everyone to eat the red lollipops, when I'm really saying it's best for everyone to get the lollipop they prefer. It just so happens that in reality everyone can't get their favorite lollipop so we have to make decisions that leave some people unhappy, and in those cases we need some standards on how to decide who gets a shitty lollipop. You fuckers have the standard that if we had to choose only one color lollipop for everyone then even if everyone else in the world prefers the red ones, it's totally fine to force the blue lollipop on everyone just because you prefer that one. I'm saying we should make that decision based on what color produces the best outcome for all involved. You can demand that I produce some logical argument proving we should do it my way if you want, I'll just tell you the same thing I tell Beyond Saving; I can't cross the fucking is-ought gap and neither can anyone else. If you need a purely logical argument to explain why you shouldn't be a selfish motherfucker then you're outta luck because there isn't one, but luckily there are people who aren't such massive cunts that they need one.

 

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So your argument for the equality of suffering isn’t based on anything at all – in fact it isn’t an argument as for you ‘equality’ is simply a given moral good – you’re so up your lefty, right-on, politically correct, fake-caring asshole that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the general principle of ‘equality’ which is all that it is, is, per se, immoral.  And you come on here, pretending that you’ve got some kind of ‘argument’?  You’ve got nothing, other than a few tired platitudes – why don’t you just shut the fuck up, you snivelling little second-rater?  Intellectually, you’re a boy trying to pass yourself off as a man.  But I suppose we should forgive the folly of youth – I’ve seen your sort before.  At twenty, they’re blustering about human (and animal) rights, Wall Street and the evils of capitalism.  At forty, they’re married with three kids and a house in the suburbs, having a barbie every Sunday afternoon and working in financial services.

If you wanna just insult me without making an argument you really don't need a whole paragraph, a few insulting words will do just fine and save everyone's time.

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Explain how I argued our DNA isn't responsible for producing our intelligence.

You said that our intelligence can ‘override’ our DNA.  But if our DNA produces our intelligence how can it override our DNA without coming from somewhere else?  The thing in our intelligence that is overriding our DNA,must have been produced by our DNA, so how is it ‘overriding’ our DNA?  It either must come from somewhere else or it can’t override our DNA at all.  If our DNA produces our intelligence to say our intelligence can override our DNA is simply to say our DNA can override our DNA which is nonsensical.

I said our intelligence can override the moronic pshychological impulses generated by our DNA, argue with that instead of your rickety strawman.

 

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The point, fucknut, is that our DNA is responsible for producing all kinds of idiotic shit in our psychology, like the feeling that the people with a different skin color are somehow not just as human or in some way less important. Our intelligence, despite the fact it was produced by our DNA just like our idiotic psychology, is capable of seeing past these idiotic notions and overriding them in our decision making process to a large degree. I really don't believe you can't see the difference between psychology and intelligence so I can only assume this is yet another weasely game of yours.


Yeah, I was waiting for you to tell us how right-on you were about racial equality.  Funnily enough you haven’t mentioned women’s rights yet or the evils of capitalism, or green energy. When are you going to get round to that?

Well if it means that much to you, I do support women's right, don't really care much one way or the other about capitalism or green energy. I don't see the relevance to this topic but I'll grant it's an amusing rant.

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There really is little difference in a nihilist asshole saying there is no value and you subjectivist assholes saying everyone decides for themselves what everything is worth.

 

Nihilist: kicking babies is meaningless one way or the other.
Subjectivist: my desire to know whether or not my shoe can handle kicking ten thousand babies is more important than the pain of the babies.
Both positions are for spineless cunts like you who can't handle being judged for the assholes they are.


Subjectivist: I make no presumption what is right for other people.

Objectivist: I know what is right for other people.

Nihilist: Other people can go to hell.

Which one is the most dangerous?  Which category do most dictators, religious bigots, moral bullies and loud-mouthed lefty little scumbags fit into?

Funny how you made no effort to prove my examples aren't accurate.

Yeah, it's dangerous when idiots try to force their idiotic standards on everyone, that's why I'm here making an argument so you can demonstrate why my standards are idiotic if you can. To say all such imposing of standards is wrong is contradictory unless you're an anarchist or some such wanker who thinks there should be no laws. I'd also like you to tell me what the harm would be if an objectivist actually did have just the right answer to make the world a kickass place for everyone and imposed that on the world?

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I admitted something of the sort where exactly?

Where I just typed it above, moron, you said you don’t CARE about my $100 as much as yours!  Why is that, if they are both of equal value?

Because I'm a selfish biological machine that's designed to be an asshole and place my petty needs over others' greater needs? I don't have to care about your stuff psychologically in order to recognize it's no less valuable than mine intellectually.

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Let’s not.  You know exactly what I mean you fucking weasel.  If two people getting kicked in the balls feel the exact same pain then it’s equally wrong to kick them in the balls, all other relevant things being equal.

Ha, ha,ha, ‘all other relevant things being equal’?  And what would these be exactly, my back-tracking, hypocritical genius?  Things like who the aggressor was and whether it was in self-defence and how hard the kick was by any chance?  You know all those inconvenient subjective little details you said we could forget about when judging if suffering was ‘equal’?  You fucking idiot.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Now can you address that statement or are you too much of a pussy?

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And a while back the majority felt black people are nothing but fucktarded savages meant to work for the white man. Was the fact people thought that in any fucking way relevant to what the ethical way to treat black people actually was? "Let's ask the retards" is not a productive way of doing ethics, if you can't see why then you are one of the retards we shouldn't be asking.


Ah yes, bringing in black people again to back up your credentials as a champion of the oppressed, just in case we’d forgotten.  So are you saying that 200 years ago a black person’s life was only worth as much as a chicken’s today?  That sounds racist to me – steady on now boyo, that’s going too far, surely?  People who tend to characterise great swathes of the populace as retards for not agreeing with their views on animal suffering tend to be just the same sort of people who 200 years ago characterised people as ‘retards’ because of their colour.

Lol, I know you know (as does anyone who's read my posts) that if I'm gonna argue that a black man's life is worth as much as a chicken's I'd also say so is the life of a white man so your attempt to paint me as a racist is absolutely hilarious.

As for painting lotsa people as retards, yeah white people did that to blacks, and later on some white people did that to the other white people who thought blacks should remain slaves, so that argument doesn't go anywhere.

 

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That's right, I really don't have an argument for why welfare matters, and I don't care. Are you gonna tell me you disagree? Go ahead, tell me you actually believe that suffering is entirely meaningless when it comes to deciding how to treat each other in the real world.


I’ve covered this above.  Obviously I don’t care a fuck about you or your welfare – the sooner you starve yourself to death the better – you haven’t answered why you’re not going to do that.  You deserve no Welfare at all.

Maybe because starvation is a really stupid way to kill yourself?

 

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Because bananas and turds can't suffer, you fucking mongoloid. Quite obviously when I write an equation where there's only one thing with welfare you can't equate it with an equation where one thing gets its pleasure from torturing something else, you useless piece of weasel shit.


But you said that ‘as long as you accept the premise of pleasure being better than suffering then there isn’t a goddamn thing about this logic that isn’t objective’.  So I’ve just substituted pedo and children for the monkey and banana in your syllogism – but you don’t accept the conclusion.  So this logic does not work ‘objectively’ does it my little scumbag friend, huh?  Go on, tell me how it works?

If you can't figure out that eating a banana and raping a child aren't ethically equivalent actions you're just too fucking stupid to have an opinion. I know that's not the problem though, once again you're just playing your little weasel games because you're too much of a pussy for an honest argument.

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Of course you’ll come back in half an hour with another screed of shit that came off the top of your head (or should I say outta the back of your ass). How about taking a bit of time thinking about your answers this time then you’ll see you haven’t got any.

Doesn't take very long to see the shit the monkey threw on the wall isn't a work of art.