Questions for theists

[Esquilax]

Avoiding extinction.
Doing what is competitively necessary to ensure your (selfish) DNA gets passed on.

And the fact that, objectively speaking, cooperation has proven to be a better strategy for survival among humans plays into this "suffering," thing... how?

[Lion IRC]

Avoiding extinction.
Doing what is competitively necessary to ensure your (selfish) DNA gets passed on.

And the fact that, objectively speaking, cooperation has proven to be a better strategy for survival among humans plays into this "suffering," thing... how?

Yes you're quite right, cooperation between Allied forces was pivotal in a war which killed 50 million people!

[Esquilax]

Yes you're quite right, cooperation between Allied forces was pivotal in a war which killed 50 million people!

Wow, what a complete non-sequitur. I actually don't want to insult your intelligence by continuing as though you believe what you just said is in any way relevant to what we're talking about.

[Lemonvariable72]

And the fact that, objectively speaking, cooperation has proven to be a better strategy for survival among humans plays into this "suffering," thing... how?

Yes you're quite right, cooperation between Allied forces was pivotal in a war which killed 50 million people!

You the war that was fought to stop a catholic and his christian followers from killing all the jews in europe?

Or do you mean the earlier one where a bunch of Christians went to war because some other Christians killed a archduke of austria, you know the one where christians sent other christians to die in battle for a few tracts of land, by the millions?

[Lion IRC]

Pick whichever war you want.

They will all be a tour de force in cooperating to achieve an objective - the objective of kill or be killed. In-group / Out-group hostility. Competition for scarce resources.

Yep, Esquilax, cooperation has always been a great Darwinian survival technique.

Bet you feel foolish for having asked how Darwinian survival entails suffering.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Sales statistics and market research shows that XXX number of customers prefer the flavour of X better than Y.

Whoops! Missed the mark here. The entire world can think X is better than Y, that doesn't change my opinion that Y is still better.

Try again...

(If we took a poll on this forum, and it showed that the majority of the people around here thought Atheists were better people than Theists, by your rationale, that would conclude that we were better people than you. Does this data still sound conclusive, or shall I continue to wait?)

[ChildOfReason]

Pick whichever war you want.

They will all be a tour de force in cooperating to achieve an objective - the objective of kill or be killed. In-group / Out-group hostility. Competition for scarce resources.

Yep, Esquilax, cooperation has always been a great Darwinian survival technique.

Bet you feel foolish for having asked how Darwinian survival entails suffering.

And how does this rant of yours prove that atheists cause suffering?

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Yes you're quite right, cooperation between Allied forces was pivotal in a war which killed 50 million people!

Do even realise just how retarded that comment is? You must be arguing for the sake of it. No one can be that stupid by accident. I hope.

[Esquilax]

Pick whichever war you want.

They will all be a tour de force in cooperating to achieve an objective - the objective of kill or be killed. In-group / Out-group hostility. Competition for scarce resources.

Yep, Esquilax, cooperation has always been a great Darwinian survival technique.

Bet you feel foolish for having asked how Darwinian survival entails suffering.

So you're just going to restate your original position again without adding any evidence, eh? That's okay, I'll straighten you out.

The problem with your thesis here, is that in the case of many recent wars, the cause hasn't been competition over resources at all: world war 2 was sparked by ideological differences, world war one by a cascading sequence of diplomatic issues. None of these were purely for survival, and one could quite comfortably argue that life would have been much better had we not fought those wars at all.

I'm not denying that, the further back we go, we can find instances of wars fought for survival; of course we can. Competition is a key piece of evolution. But we need to think: when was the last war one nation fought against another merely because not doing so would cause that society to die out? It's been a while since we've had to actually fight a real, natural, Darwinian competition for survival, and why?

Oh, that's right, it's due to cooperation. Grouping together, cooperating, has turned us into the dominant species on the planet. It scaffolded us up to a point where we no longer need to fight for survival among ourselves; our food production has drastically increased, our ability to shelter ourselves, provide for all our needs, is well within hand. Not all over the place obviously, but those places where we don't have those abilities just contrasts more keenly with those that do.

By cooperating, we've been able to remove all those needs that required conflict and death dealing in the past. That's just demonstrably true.

Who feels foolish now, Lion?

[Lion IRC]

Sales statistics and market research shows that XXX number of customers prefer the flavour of X better than Y.

Whoops! Missed the mark here. The entire world can think X is better than Y, that doesn't change my opinion that Y is still better.

Try again...

Nope. It's right on target - a bullseye.
Maybe you are happy to ignore the REASON why XXX number of people have determined that X is better than Y.

Sure, you can be the minority of 1 person in the entire world who disagrees. But please don't make the fallacious assumption that the REASON why so many more people THINK something is an irrelevant consideration.

Should I take flavour advice from someone who thinks cow dung tastes OK?
No. I'm gonna use logic and reason and factor in all the information I have - including the apparent defect in your taste buds since (someone like) you might be the only person in 'the entire world' who prefers scat to vanilla ice cream. No thanks. I'm going with the majority and leave the experimental flavours to you.

People think the argumentum ad populam is always a logical fallacy.
It's not.
There is a difference between "persuasive" and "conclusive"

---

Pick whichever war you want.

They will all be a tour de force in cooperating to achieve an objective - the objective of kill or be killed. In-group / Out-group hostility. Competition for scarce resources.

Yep, Esquilax, cooperation has always been a great Darwinian survival technique.

Bet you feel foolish for having asked how Darwinian survival entails suffering.

...By cooperating, we've been able to remove all those needs that required conflict and death dealing in the past. That's just demonstrably true.

Who feels foolish now, Lion?

Did you just make the absurd utopian claim that we have removed ALL those "needs that cause conflict"?
ALL of them gone now?

I can see why you aren't sure which one of us looks foolish.