RE: List of reasons to believe God exists?
December 4, 2017 at 6:07 pm
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2017 at 6:09 pm by Catholic_Lady.)
WallyM, I have a question for you about morality. As I understand it, you believe morality to be a purely societal construct based around what is best for the community in general, and empathy was evolved to reflect that. Is that correct?
Let's go back to the times of ancient civilizations where a powerful Empire enslaved an entire group of people. Let's use the Egyptians enslaving the Jews as the example. Obviously having slaves is good for the Egyptian community. They rely on it for everything, and without the forced labor of these "lesser people" they wouldn't live the comfortable, high quality life they have. Let's say one of these Egyptians is a sociopath... lacks empathy of any sort and to make matters worse has a particular fetish for violence and forced sex. He's super horny one night and so decides to take care of these urges by going out and raping a Jewish slave girl. He's not going to get in trouble for it because no one who matters will believe her instead of him, and even if they did, they wouldn't care... it's just a slave girl anyway. He feels zero remorse, and in his mind, it's not big deal at all. Also, it won't have a single negative effect at all in his community.
Is what he did still immoral? If so, why?
Let's go back to the times of ancient civilizations where a powerful Empire enslaved an entire group of people. Let's use the Egyptians enslaving the Jews as the example. Obviously having slaves is good for the Egyptian community. They rely on it for everything, and without the forced labor of these "lesser people" they wouldn't live the comfortable, high quality life they have. Let's say one of these Egyptians is a sociopath... lacks empathy of any sort and to make matters worse has a particular fetish for violence and forced sex. He's super horny one night and so decides to take care of these urges by going out and raping a Jewish slave girl. He's not going to get in trouble for it because no one who matters will believe her instead of him, and even if they did, they wouldn't care... it's just a slave girl anyway. He feels zero remorse, and in his mind, it's not big deal at all. Also, it won't have a single negative effect at all in his community.
Is what he did still immoral? If so, why?
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh