(November 12, 2013 at 9:53 pm)wallym Wrote: We know these rules make sense for people invested in society. What religion (and things like it) does is make these rules make sense for people who aren't invested in society.
The effectiveness of this really depends on how much any kind of rules matter to a person who has no interest in the society around them.
Quote:When a person decides to kill themselves, they no longer are invested in society, for example. So if they feel like killing a bunch of other people first, there's no reason for them not to. God saying no killing is an absolute. The social contract only exists for people who want to remain in the social contract.
The problem here is that a person who has decided to kill him/herself has already decided to disregard one of God's rules, because suicide is definitely a no-no in Christianity. If that rule means nothing to a person, why would we expect any of the other rules to matter to them?
The other problem is that the Bible doesn't present "no killing" as an absolute. Depending on how one wishes to interpret the Old Testament (and there is definitely no clear guideline on how to do that), a person who wishes to kill has plenty of justification if they want it.
I have no god to answer to, yet my stance on killing other people is much closer to absolute than God's: only in immediate defense of your life, or someone else's life, or if a person wishes to die. To me, no other intentional killing is acceptable at all. I certainly do not condone the killing of witches or homosexuals or people who don't share my lack of religion.
Quote:Morals are an evolutionary development. But poor people and powerful people tend to be able to dodge them, because they aren't as invested in the contract.
This statement assumes an objective moral standard, though. I don't think there are that many truly amoral people out there.
