RE: morality is subjective and people don't have free will
May 19, 2017 at 2:20 pm
(This post was last modified: May 19, 2017 at 2:28 pm by Mister Agenda.)
Catholic_Lady Wrote:Yes, it is horrible. All of it. Any bit of it is too much. No disagreement there, as im sure you all know.
But my issue is this: are you trying to say then that these acts/belief represent mainstream Christianity? Because thats the impression im getting, and the generalization is the only thing ive objected to. (EDIT TO ADD: I reread your post, and sorry... you did indeed acknowledge that this isn't mainstream behavior in Christianity, but might be mainstream in evangelicals specifically. Are you trying to say I should be more vocal about it? Raise awareness, etc?)
There are more than 2 billion of us world wide. I just don't like being put into a box with the most horrible people out of the group. I also find irony in so many people being quick to say "not all Muslims ________", and being super quick to shut down any generalization or criticism of Islam, yet have no problem doing it to christians. No one wants to be generalized or put into a box. Not Muslims and not us Christians either.
You don't have to raise awareness. That's not specifically your job though more power to you if you're up to it. Acknowledgment that it's not rare is all that I'm looking for here, and that it has to do with traditional Christian teachings that were mainstream in living memory.
I do not recall that time when the atheists on this forum had to argue with, say, a Syrian Muslim that there's a problem with religious violence in their country. If they are against the violence, that's fantastic, but if their response were 'it's not mainstream, I haven't personally experienced it, it's just the extremists' I don't think we would consider that anything but defensive posturing.
If someone said all Christians teach their kids that they're sinners who deserve hell before they're seven years old, I would agree that is an incorrect statement. I think it's a minority, but it's not a tiny one.
When someone complains about white people, I don't say 'not all white people' Because I know that if they didn't say 'all white people' they didn't actually mean every single white person without exception, and they probably didn't really mean it if they did say all white people. If they really do mean it, and it's not something like 'all white people are Caucasians', I'm happy to disagree with them if they're worth the trouble or it would be educational for onlookers.
Catholic_Lady Wrote:Do you think eventually, if the world got sooo overpopulated that an individual's survival depended on there being less people so that there could be enough resources left for us personally, we'd eventually evolve to believe it's immoral to help save someone who's dying? Assuming they are a complete stranger and not friend or family I mean - just some random person.
Hmm. Perhaps fortunately, our genes operate according to game theory for the most part and natural selection acts on individuals. It will always be in the 'interest' of your genes for you to propagate, and it will always be organisms that do propagate that will be selected for. There would probably be fewer extinctions if a species could act in its own long-term best interest instead of each member of the species being selected for their own ability to propagate (which can include pro-social behavior).
At least we've evolved the ability to see where we're headed, so it's at least theoretically possible for us to choose to sacrifice our own propagation for the continuation of the species...but those are exactly the sort of people natural selection operates against.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.