RE: Christians celebrate rape, torture, slavery and genocide.
November 15, 2012 at 12:19 pm
(This post was last modified: November 15, 2012 at 12:31 pm by John V.)
(November 15, 2012 at 10:29 am)Kirbmarc Wrote: What we define as "good" are empathic traits. "Evil", on the other hand, is composed by sociopathic traits.I disagree with your definitions and see it as an excluded middle fallacy. I.e., you're defining your position to success by limiting evil people to those who are so evil that they can't possibly change. I know a guy who used to get drunk every day and frequently abused his wife. He had a religious experience and is now sober for years and happily married. Seems like a formerly evil person who's now doing good to me.
I really don't see how this could happen. A person with a large number of sociopathic traits (i.e. an "evil" person) isn't going to commit good deeds just out of fear of an alleged punishment. Sociopaths are stubbornly convinced that what they do is good, no matter what it is.
A religious sociopath is likely to become a religious extremist, possibly a violent one, not to join a charity.
On the other hand, empathic persons may acknowledge that they what they have done is bad. However, since they're less stubborn in their beliefs, they're more likely to be swayed by a charismatic "prophet" (usually a sociopath) and commit evil deeds because, at the moment, they're convinced that they have a good reason to do so.
(November 15, 2012 at 10:39 am)Darkstar Wrote: Poison makes you sick (or dead), so is it objectively wrong to poison people? What if it was Hitler?No and no.
Quote:Just because the is no perfect 'works in every situation' rulebook of objectivity does not mean that we can justify things like slavery by calling morality subjective.I haven't claimed that the subjective nature of morality justifies anything. Justification is really a concept to be applied within a moral system, not across moral systems.
Quote:You said that the conversation with me was more interesting, but never answered my post. You don't need to go back; you can just leave off with this one.IIRC you were going to give objective reasons for the superiority of utilitarianism to other moral systems, presumably Biblical.
