Duck Dynasty

[vorlon13]

I just watch the show. I don't bother hearing about their personal beliefs, which are unsurprising for people living in the bible belt. It's like when I found out Steve Harvey is willfully ignorant about atheists, and doesn't want to have anything to do with them. It doesn't keep me from watching Family Feud.

I don't know why it's a big deal to find out that a family living in the south have typical southern religious beliefs. Just a drop in the bucket down here. He's just another ignorant idiot that thinks christians are paragons of virtue, and atheists are psychopaths. This level of fail isn't even worth having a discussion about.

Steve Harvey doesn't inject religion in Family Feud very often, but when he does, it sure grates on my nerves.  Divorced and remarried he is, and I no more want to hear his religious twaddle than David Koresh's or Jim Jones's.

And there not being much objection to his abominable adultery from the other Christers is grating too.

[Lek]

Has anyone else seen the bullshit spewing out of that fucktards mouth from Duck Dynasty??

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/peopl.../70478482/

Un-fucking-believeable how ignorant and stupid people can be

Read the posts in this forum and you'll see countless examples of atheists using the same method to argue against christianity. He's using the absurd to illustrate a valid point. You can dance around it all you want, but without an ultimate authority, there is nothing to prove that anybody's morality is wrong. All you can do is say that proper behavior is dictated by the society or culture that you live in. You can't determine what is moral or isn't. If a person gets away with something, he's totally in the clear.

[henryp]

I think the problem a lot of religious folks who make this type of argument have, is that they give Atheists too much credit. Just because someone doesn't believe in God in no way means they are going to live accordingly. (and vice versa)

I agree with him. Someone murders my family and castrates me, it'll be a bummer. But it won't be right or wrong. Maybe wrong in the scope of the law. Wrong in the scope of our social contract. But obeying those things is voluntary. I don't have any say in how someone else lives their live. I can be a part of trying to manipulate them into living a life more beneficial to me/the group, but again, participation is voluntary. If they don't mind the consequences, oh well.

Of course, what he is missing, is that the idea of it being right/wrong offers little consolation. Dead family and castrated is dead family and castrated, whether you call it wrong, or you just call it unfortunate.

[KevinM1]

Has anyone else seen the bullshit spewing out of that fucktards mouth from Duck Dynasty??

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/peopl.../70478482/

Un-fucking-believeable how ignorant and stupid people can be

Read the posts in this forum and you'll see countless examples of atheists using the same method to argue against christianity.  He's using the absurd to illustrate a valid point.  You can dance around it all you want, but without an ultimate authority, there is nothing to prove that anybody's morality is wrong.  All you can do is say that proper behavior is dictated by the society or culture that you live in.  You can't determine what is moral or isn't.  If a person gets away with something, he's totally in the clear.

The idea that you can use the bible to prove someone's morality wrong was used as the justification for many horrible things, ranging from war, to slavery, to genocide.  I find that line of thinking to be ethically bankrupt.

EDIT:

And I'm sure your glib response will be something along the lines of "Well, my morality says it's okay to prove someone else's wrong."

The thing is, is that in a lot (most?) cultures, you'll see the same basic ideas:

Outright murdering someone is wrong.
Theft is wrong.
Respect your elders.
Praise this particular god (or gods) and ignore the rest.
The golden rule.

The reason being isn't divine, but rather social.  Our greatest evolutionary advantage is that we're social.  We survive and thrive better in groups.  So, it's common sense to act in ways that protect group cohesion.

See, when we become toddlers, we develop the Theory of the Mind.  Meaning, we realize that other children, other people, have minds like we do.  That they feel and think mostly like we do.  So, we can imagine how we'd react if roles were reversed.  It's that development of empathy that drives a lot of our morality.  And that brain development happens regardless of culture.  Yes, some cultures put more or less of an emphasis on it, or do things to twist it (like separate the boys from the girls in order to raise one gender as better than the other), but it's always there.  And that's where most of our morality comes from.  Because we know how we'd feel in bad/unfair/painful situations, we try to mitigate them for everyone.

Now, that empathy obviously isn't absolute.  Anger and our ability to paint The Other as being not human can override it.  Same with jealousy and envy (which is another reason why most cultures have rules against theft).  But, within the group, that's how it works.

So, what Robertson is describing isn't some honest absolute reduction of morality.  It's, instead, a clear misunderstanding of our history as a social species, a clear misunderstanding of how atheists still have morals, and insulting on top of it all.  What he's painting is a picture of psychopaths who delight in harming others, and attempting to apply that to atheists as a whole.  And anyone who restrains themselves from that kind of behavior only because they believe their god wouldn't condone such actions is a menace to society.

So, no, he doesn't have a valid point.

[QuarkDriven]

Has anyone else seen the bullshit spewing out of that fucktards mouth from Duck Dynasty??

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/peopl.../70478482/

Un-fucking-believeable how ignorant and stupid people can be

Read the posts in this forum and you'll see countless examples of atheists using the same method to argue against christianity.  He's using the absurd to illustrate a valid point.  You can dance around it all you want, but without an ultimate authority, there is nothing to prove that anybody's morality is wrong.  All you can do is say that proper behavior is dictated by the society or culture that you live in.  You can't determine what is moral or isn't.  If a person gets away with something, he's totally in the clear.

you mean an example where it shows a christian commiting a horrible sin, asking for forgiveness then all is okay?

So you're basically saying without god, you don't know how not to be an asshole? You're right when you say one person's right/wrong may differ from another, but to not have a general idea of what is right and wrong, well thats just messed up person. Earlier societies without law would have never made it if it wouldnt have been for some standards.... how could we have survived if we are all killing each other... its mutually beneficial to not.....

[Anomalocaris]

Has anyone else seen the bullshit spewing out of that fucktards mouth from Duck Dynasty??

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/peopl.../70478482/

Un-fucking-believeable how ignorant and stupid people can be

Read the posts in this forum and you'll see countless examples of atheists using the same method to argue against christianity.  He's using the absurd to illustrate a valid point.  You can dance around it all you want, but without an ultimate authority, there is nothing to prove that anybody's morality is wrong.  All you can do is say that proper behavior is dictated by the society or culture that you live in.  You can't determine what is moral or isn't.  If a person gets away with something, he's totally in the clear.

Except the ultimate authority exists only in your head, and you Christians have time and again invoked your convenient fictional ultimate authority to justify acts of your infantile venal hearts so barbaric that most human made authorities that manifestly exists would otherwise be unlikely to let you slide

[Desert Diva]

It isn't just that all the bullshit they spout is offensive, that's bad enough, but the whole "jesusy backwoods heehaws" schtick is just that, a stupid bunch of bullshit made up to appeal to people so fucking stupid they can't use google to see that no, these wonderful homespun folk ain't just like you, bubba.

This is who they really are.

[KevinM1]

It isn't just that all the bullshit they spout is offensive, that's bad enough, but the whole "jesusy backwoods heehaws" schtick is just that, a stupid bunch of bullshit made up to appeal to people so fucking stupid they can't use google to see that no, these wonderful homespun folk ain't just like you, bubba.

This is who they really are.

Hardly surprising.  They followed Larry the Cable Guy's schtick all the way to the bank because people eat the obviousness of all of it up.  This is what Daniel Lawrence Whitney looked like when he was a mediocre comic in the 1990s:



It was only after he created the redneck persona that he got any notoriety.  The Duck Dynasty people merely followed along.

[Foxaèr]

Duck Dynasty is a fucking retarded reality show. Those hicks are not even real hicks. Before they decided to do the show, they were rich white people, wearing polo shirts and living just as rich snobby people do.

[robvalue]

If morality is just "what God says is moral" then it has nothing to do with the wellbeing of humans or animals. It is an arbitrary list of god's whims. We can only decide whether or not these whims are actually helpful or harmful by using our own sense of morality.

You have to pick one: what does morality mean? It either means "what God says is moral" or "maximising wellbeing and minimising harm to humans/animals". You can't use two different definitions at the same time. To just assume they are one and the same is to entirely surrender your own humanity and become an amoral agent.

Also, a list of rules is never going to cover the intricacies of each situation where multiple factors are competing, and need to be weighted accordingly. Since God doesn't come down and judge every situation for us, even trying to apply all his rules blindly is going to be impossible, except to announce everyone as immoral. Which is kind of the point of Christianity: make everyone feel like they are broken, and that Jesus is the only way to be mended.