Why does god want to cut off women's hands?

[Esquilax]

Insult me all you like, but the fact is that you made a circular argument, and haven't corrected it.

Do you not like your personal freedoms? Do you think that other people happen to enjoy theirs? This is the reason that it isn't circular. The things that people want are important to people; I know you think that everything issues from god, but you haven't demonstrated that. In the meantime, I can easily demonstrate that people have positive and negative responses to stimuli and can construct societies based upon those.

Yes, it's not quite as lofty as "this is good because it's divinely ordained," but in a world where we are the only beings in the society, it's all we have.

No, I'm asking you to support that it is with something other than circles or, in this case, an argument from ignorance.

And again, the fact that you don't understand simple concepts like "people enjoy certain things," in no way makes my argument invalid or circular. Try, just for a little while, considering the atheist viewpoint, where we're required to construct out concepts of good and bad sans divine intervention: what would we build these ideas around, in that case?

My submission is that part of these come down to our positive/negative responses to the stimuli of the physical world we all inhabit. Yes, it's not a perfect basis, it's led to some mistakes in the past, but we correct them.

An evolutionist could easily argue that happiness isn't important, only reproductive success

Certainly, from an evolutionary perspective, that's the most important thing. But there are other perspectives than just one; there's also a human perspective, in which happiness is important.

- and even that relies on the unsupported premise that life is important.

Life isn't important in the grand scheme of things. But it's important to me, being that I'm a living being. Why is it that you think that human desires play no justifiable part in what's important to humans?

I'm pretty sure the slave owners derived benefits from their slaves which made them happy, but that happiness doesn't seem important to you.

It's why I added that whole qualifier about constraints, because it's not just about individual happiness. We aren't children, we understand that sometimes longterm happiness and safety means that we must give up certain immediate, maximal pleasures. Yes, slavery is a distinct advantage for the slave owner, but it isn't for the slaves, and we as human beings have a little thing called "empathy" which means that we can imagine the pain of others. Yes, there's an evolutionary basis for that.

Speaking of which, in purely practical terms, the reason we abolished slavery is because certain things need to be, for the health of the society; allowing slavery puts a target on the backs of everyone, in terms of who can be enslaved in the future. It's best if the whole practice is just forbidden, so that nobody gets hurt. The same with murder, and rape, etc etc: a functioning society benefits all of its members, hence that little "mutual agreement" clause you skipped over.

So, now you have it. I'm really rather surprised I had to drag it out this far.

JArranged marriage has been common across time and cultures. You're taking a very narrow and arrogant view in calling it rape.

So, to be clear: the women are taken from their homes in the middle of a war, while their families are being killed in that same war, and they're married off to the men who kidnapped them, against their will since it's an arranged marriage, and you're saying that they'd consent to sex with the enemy that's pillaging their home?

Or are you just being obtuse again because it's easier than admitting your holy book is slowly turning you into a fucking monster, one immoral scriptural defense at a time?