Why Secular Morality is Superior

[Foxaèr]

You omit the fact that God would judge the whole life of the child and it's potential descendants. Only God can know if that future is innocent or guilty, and is the only one who can exact justice.

And here we go again. You are really becoming the precedent for god's foot licker.

A good god cannot be omniscient and omnipotent, yet allow atrocities to happen. It is not a difficult concept to understand. It is logic, of which I can somewhat perceive you not understanding. After all, if faith was akin to logic, religion would be in accordance with science rather than against it.

[fr0d0]

No one has managed to substantiate anything yet.

Do not be so facetious, because neither have you to substantiate anything. Rather, you make turnabout comments redirecting the burden away from you. If you want to remain smart, you should reevaluate yourself. Goodness knows, one only gets so many chances with me. You have just used your last chance.

Once more with the threats.

Please show me what I need to substantiate.

I have made no claims. I'm not turning anything about. My position is that of the unaltered text. Text which is quoted directly as evidence supposedly saying something that isn't there.

I'm asking for clarification as to why I should understand the opposite of what is written.

So far no one has managed to make one single valid justification of their claims that the text means the opposite of what it says.

Surely if this is so clear to you that shouldn't be difficult. Surely if you couldn't substantiate something you wouldn't claim it to be true?

Are you being dishonest here?

[Foxaèr]

Are you being dishonest here?

If that is an honest question, then I truly fear for your intellect. I honestly thought you were smarter than this, but of course I have been wrong in the past. I am not perfect, I make mistakes. When I encounter one of your low caliber, I make the decision to ignore anything you have to offer. After all, I am seeking a challenge, not a median to which one could compare a safety cone.

[Esquilax]

genocide is never just!

Please demonstrate how that is so.

At the moment that you begin defending genocide you have clearly demonstrated that you have no morality at all, or are at least willing to completely divorce yourself from every tenet of morality that has ever been developed, in any workable moral system in history, to defend your untenable beliefs. Fr0d0, I thought you were better than this.

You omit the fact that God would judge the whole life of the child and it's potential descendants. Only God can know if that future is innocent or guilty, and is the only one who can exact justice. Once more, how are you judging God? What knowledge do you possess and how? If you cannot know, how are you making these claims?

Two things: one, if Ryantology can have no way of knowing, then how can you? You both have exactly the same basis, and yet for some reason you are assuming that each and every one of the people there would in time do something to deserve death, and despite calling Ryan on that very assumption, you make it yourself with the expectation that nobody will pick up on it.

And two, your entire objection is nonsensical, because of another favorite claim of yours, that you made today in another thread, "freedom is required for love." So obviously you believe that god gives us free will, with which we can sin or turn to god in equal measure. Therefore, how can you possibly say that these people, these infants have a predetermined fate?

More than that, if they're killed for crimes they haven't yet committed, then they haven't committed any crimes.

This just shows the underlying hypocrisy of every religious claim; in one breath you're willing to shrug off the evils of this world as a free will thing god will not intervene with, and then in the very next you claim that god is willing to rob the Amelekite children of their free will to choose good or evil, and that he had predetermined them to be evil from the outset!

Your position is entirely untenable here, from top to bottom. And when the top of your argument is a defense of genocidal slaughter, it utterly baffles me that you're still claiming the moral position.

[Ryantology]

#1 is a dishonest over simplification. You omit the fact that God would judge the whole life of the child and it's potential descendants. Only God can know if that future is innocent or guilty, and is the only one who can exact justice. Once more, how are you judging God? What knowledge do you possess and how? If you cannot know, how are you making these claims?

Is it a crime in the eyes of God to birth descendants who commit crimes? Is it just to condemn someone for a crime they might commit in the future? Weren't you the one just telling me that Calvinism is an incorrect interpretation of Christianity? If God is willing to kill someone for crimes uncommitted, then the idea of free will is fraudulent.

Not only that, there's no consistency with this interpretation. Why did God spare everyone else in the world who might commit offenses against him, or produce descendants who would? The world has never been short of people who don't follow God's commandments. Why did God decide not to destroy the individual perpetrators? Why did he not decide to kill their ancestors? He didn't do either of these things. That is the knowledge I possess. Inconsistent justice is an oxymoron.

#2 "crime" is a word you added and yet there is no evidence of a crime being committed. People we're killed. God served justice. Please show your proof that these people we're innocent.

Guilty until proven innocent? Show your proof that these people were guilty of any offense against the God who destroyed them. I want you to demonstrate to me what crime a baby at the breast could possibly commit. I want you to explain to me (and how many times have I asked now? Three?) precisely how you would justify slaughtering every person in a nation.

[John V]

And you can experience the feeling of pain without self-awareness how?

Touch something that’s harmful to the body, feel pain.

You should be telling me how or why not, rather than asking. Remember, your claim is that secular morality focuses like a laser on what’s really important. The scope of beings covered by morality is really important, yet all you’ve managed so far is to rule out rocks and amoebas. Unlike you I don’t rush claims to victory. I give my opponent time. But, your time is running out.

[quote]Deut 21:10-14 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

Thanks for giving the answer for me. Props to you, as most critics aren’t aware of this passage. This practice seems strange to modern Westerners, but arranged marriage has been common through time and across cultures.

[DeistPaladin]

Touch something that’s harmful to the body, feel pain.

...and the reason I feel pain and experience the sensation is because I am self-aware. You didn't answer my question.

You should be telling me how or why not, rather than asking

.
You made a point that I found confusing. Hence, I asked for clarification.

Remember, your claim is that secular morality focuses like a laser on what’s really important. The scope of beings covered by morality is really important, yet all you’ve managed so far is to rule out rocks and amoebas. Unlike you I don’t rush claims to victory. I give my opponent time. But, your time is running out.

Well, the good news for me is I win either way. Or didn't you read my earlier post on this whole animal-rights-vs-human-rights conundrum.

Since you don't like to click on links, here's the quote:

The issue of animal rights vs. human rights is a complex one. I'm prepared to say that throwing a kitten off a cliff for fun is evil but hunting for food is justifiable. Perhaps I'm wrong and a vegan can make the case to me otherwise.

Now before you play the "ha ha, you don't have all the answers, therefore Jesus" card, let me remind you that this complexity doesn't give religious-based morality an edge.

Why?

Because religious-based morality arrives at the complexity of secular morals and then dumps a truckload of exalted-but-worthless "virtues" and victimless "sins" on top of it all.

John V can try to muddy up the waters but at the end of the day, he still hasn't justified why these "virtues" are really virtues or why these "sins" should be considered wrong. He has to accomplish this task or else admit that theistic morality is needlessly more complex than secular morality and therefore inferior.

Let's not forget, amidst all your red herring evasion, that the jist of point #1 is that theistic morality dumps a truckload of crap on the discussion of what is moral and therefore is more complex and therefore inferior. I don't need to provide a list of easy answers to complex questions philosophers have wrestled with for millennia. You need to explain why all this crap about "no gods before me", "don't take the Lord's name in vein", "no idols" etc, are at all useful to our understanding of what is moral and what morality is.

Thanks for giving the answer for me. Props to you, as most critics aren’t aware of this passage. This practice seems strange to modern Westerners, but arranged marriage has been common through time and across cultures.

Some friendly advice: just ignore the passage, brush past my argument, pretend it doesn't exist and hope I don't bring it up again. You're good at red herring evasion so it should be your preferred tactic anyway. Don't try to defend the practice of taking war slaves and forcing them into marriage and sex. It's a big pitfall that Frodo already fell into (on the genocide issue).

[John V]

...and the reason I feel pain and experience the sensation is because I am self-aware. You didn't answer my question.

I’ve previously quoted discussions which said that self-awareness is not a necessary component of sentience, and that sentience necessarily implies the ability to feel pain. Your position above doesn’t hold using those definitions. So, I need you to define self-aware in order to continue.

Well, the good news for me is I win either way.

Of course, as you have tiger blood. WINNING!

The issue of animal rights vs. human rights is a complex one. I'm prepared to say that throwing a kitten off a cliff for fun is evil but hunting for food is justifiable. Perhaps I'm wrong and a vegan can make the case to me otherwise.

We don’t even know if there is an issue of animal rights v. human rights yet. You previously drew the line at sentience. I showed that in philosophy animals that can feel pleasure and pain are considered sentient. Seems we need your definition of sentience, too.

Now before you play the "ha ha, you don't have all the answers, therefore Jesus" card, let me remind you that this complexity doesn't give religious-based morality an edge.

At this point, I’m not saying that you don’t have all the answers. I’m saying that you don’t even have a starting point. You can’t even tell us the covered entities of your morality. This isn’t a complexity, it’s a fail.

Because religious-based morality arrives at the complexity of secular morals and then dumps a truckload of exalted-but-worthless "virtues" and victimless "sins" on top of it all.

John V can try to muddy up the waters but at the end of the day, he still hasn't justified why these "virtues" are really virtues or why these "sins" should be considered wrong. He has to accomplish this task or else admit that theistic morality is needlessly more complex than secular morality and therefore inferior.

As already noted: the distinctions between religious and civil aspects of religious morality are clear and don’t cause confusion; and, secular morality also has victimless offenses such as public nudity.

Let's not forget, amidst all your red herring evasion, that the jist of point #1 is that theistic morality dumps a truckload of crap on the discussion of what is moral and therefore is more complex and therefore inferior. I don't need to provide a list of easy answers to complex questions philosophers have wrestled with for millennia. You need to explain why all this crap about "no gods before me", "don't take the Lord's name in vein", "no idols" etc, are at all useful to our understanding of what is moral and what morality is.

Special pleading.

[DeistPaladin]

Of course, as you have tiger blood. WINNING!

Not sure what the tiger blood is a reference to but when you lose an argument, there's always appeals to ridicule, it would seem.

As already noted: the distinctions between religious and civil aspects of religious morality are clear and don’t cause confusion; and, secular morality also has victimless offenses such as public nudity.

Still waiting for you to justify the increased and confusing complexity that religious-based morality dumps on top of the issues of secular morality. No more red herring evasion for you. Your options are:
1. Answer the challenge or
2. Concede point #1

Special pleading.

You and Frodo love to bandy around terms that describe logical fallacies but don't seem to understand what they mean.

[Rahul]

Of course, as you have tiger blood. WINNING!

Not sure what the tiger blood is a reference to but when you lose an argument, there's always appeals to ridicule, it would seem.

It's from when Charlie Sheen got fired off of Two And a Half Men and went totally nutbar for several months.

Those are the types of things he would say about himself.

I thought it was an amusing reference.