Do atheists fake egalitarianism?

[Esquilax]

Egalitarianism is a recent modern phenomena.  It is not something we evolved.  It is an assumption that certain human societies accept and other human societies reject.  If it is but a choice and not a universal truth, then there is nothing wrong with a society deciding gays are lessor human beings or women shouldn't vote.

... And now we've entered the "willfully deceptive" portion of communicating with Heywood. Anyone no longer willing to converse with such an out and out, obtuse liar can exit through the gift shop, and I must warn you, anybody sticking around the further prevaricating portions of the ride risks getting completely deluged in bullshit.

[Chad32]

Yeah, human intellect.

Human intellect in Iran has deemed gays to be lessor human beings.  Is it a fact then that in Iran, gays are lessor human beings because their society deems it so?  If it is the intellect of society which determines what is equivalent and what isn't, then you can't really criticize another society when they don't treat gays equally.  If it is simply universally true that gender et al should be treated equally, the intellect which decided that must be greater than the intellect of human societies.

No, it's the abrahamic religion that tells them gays are lesser than others.

[robvalue]

That is something that annoys me, I've heard it a lot from some very ignorant people. Because there may be a general difference in the average of some statistic/ability between two subsets of people, it is assumed that any two random people from each set will follow that pattern. Statistically they will most of the time, but just look at the two people in question and find out! Why try and make a predictive model of people you have right in front of you?

[Jenny A]

The Declaration of Independence suggests that egalitarianism is more than a political movement.....that it is a brute fact of nature established by God and not some choice made by society. 

Yes, but the idea was NOT that people are all of equal ability.  The idea is that people all have an inherent right to be treated equally according to what they do, not who they were born to.  And although they declared the right given by a creator, they knew damn well that the right was a societal choice.  They were rejecting English rule as a societal choice.

---

Egalitarianism is a recent modern phenomena.  It is not something we evolved.  It is an assumption that certain human societies accept and other human societies reject.  If it is but a choice and not a universal truth, then there is nothing wrong with a society deciding gays are lessor human beings or women shouldn't vote.

It is a choice.  A moral choice in favor of fairness. And there is something very wrong with deciding gays and women are lessor human beings.  It's unfair.

We do slowly build better cultures.  Cultures evolve too.  But it's human beings who make those steps forward.  Belief in god tends to retard not foster fairness.

[Heywood]

That is something that annoys me, I've heard it a lot from some very ignorant people. Because there may be a general difference in the average of some statistic/ability between two subsets of people, it is assumed that any two random people from each set will follow that pattern. Statistically they will most of the time, but just look at the two people in question and find out! Why try and make a predictive model of people you have right in front of you?

Because time is money and you've evolved to follow stereotypes.  If you think blacks are stronger than whites and you need ten laborers who only need to be strong, you're going to want to interview just blacks.   

[Cato]

Egalitarianism is a recent modern phenomena.  It is not something we evolved.  It is an assumption that certain human societies accept and other human societies reject.  If it is but a choice and not a universal truth, then there is nothing wrong with a society deciding gays are lessor human beings or women shouldn't vote.

You really have no fucking idea what you are talking about do you?

Here are some links on the subject. It's perfectly reasonable to take a specific position, but at least make an attempt to understand the basics that have been hashed out for millennia.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

[Angrboda]

And as I pointed out, nature evolved us as a social species, and it is the requirements of prospering as a social species which lead to the choice of egalitarianism.  The meddling intellect evolved in such a way that this is the most profitable meddling.  Our intellect didn't choose to make us a social species; we evolved that trait.  The rest is contingent upon us having evolved to be a social species.  No, egalitarianism didn't evolve as a free standing attribute, but even if it had, you've given no reason why it couldn't.  You're strawmanning evolution by calling it mere happenstance; evolution works under the constraints of natural selection.  You're misrepresenting that the alternative to your god theory is mere randomness; it isn't.  We evolved our social nature as a response to the contingencies presented by the environment we evolved in, in relation to our phenotype.  It wasn't "random happenstance."

Egalitarianism is a recent modern phenomena.  It is not something we evolved.  It is an assumption that certain human societies accept and other human societies reject.  If it is but a choice and not a universal truth, then there is nothing wrong with a society deciding gays are lessor human beings or women shouldn't vote.

You're misrepresenting what I said. I stated that we evolved the trait of being a social species, and that the choice of egalitarianism became the optimal choice under those conditions. No, we didn't evolve egalitarianism; I never said we did. It is a choice based on a truth which is universal within the context of our species. That some societies do not accept egalitarianism as the optimal solution given our social nature is an empirical fact, not an endorsement of non-egalitarian solutions; it profits your argument none to acknowledge that some societies have rejected egalitarianism, you need to show that their doing so is as optimal as adopting egalitarianism. I'll thank you not to so blatantly misrepresent my position again. All you accomplish in doing so is to commit the fallacy of erecting a straw man.

[Pyrrho]

That is something that annoys me, I've heard it a lot from some very ignorant people. Because there may be a general difference in the average of some statistic/ability between two subsets of people, it is assumed that any two random people from each set will follow that pattern. Statistically they will most of the time, but just look at the two people in question and find out! Why try and make a predictive model of people you have right in front of you?

It is because people are stupid and lazy.  It is easier to jump to a conclusion than to evaluate information properly.  That is why informal (and formal) fallacies are so common.

The more stupid and lazy a person is, the more likely that person will jump to some unwarranted conclusion.

[Alex K]

Discussion cut somewhat short by the OP being banned. Oh well.

[Esquilax]

Discussion cut somewhat short by the OP being banned. Oh well.

Wasn't much of a discussion anyway. As per usual, it was just Heywood attacking a strawman and pretending that nobody is correcting him when that inevitably happens.