pop morality

[The Grand Nudger]

No. What I have said IS THIS CULTURE HAS ADOPTED SLAVERY AND GENOCIDE, But Relabled it so it seems 'morally just.' Which is extremely dangerous because without being honest with  ourselves we put no terms or limits on slavery or our genocidal war.

I don't know about yall, but when I think of things taken to be morally just by my society ..........exploitative migrant labor conditions and foreign sweatshops just jump right up at me as great examples.  I mean, think about it...every day on the news we see opinion pieces extolling the moral justness of sub par wages and substandard working conditions.  People and businesses clamor to attach their names to productive sweatshops and the worst illegal labor violations, there are committees which hand out citations to the most cruel and usory of sweatshop operations and labor law violations...so we can know who these great americans are. When we discover them in our midst, they're universally loved and respected for their involvement with such morally just endeavors, and news broadcasts hound them constantly for an opportunity to praise them for their efforts and ethics.....................

I am waving the flag, bring attention to how this society is actively participating in no restriction Slavery and is gearing up for a genocidal war, and in your mind I'm the one who endorses it?? What kind of broken mind do you have?
The problem little miss doesn't thinks she wrong, is that without owning your immoral behaivor/Changing your immorality to judtify your actions, you are making it ok to literally do the things you yourself claim is immoral!

How can you not see that?

I think that there's a little man waving a flag in your christian head, trying to get your attention....but he hasn't seen the outside world in so long he doesn't have a representative picture of reality anymore.

[Nihilist Virus]

Red herring?  I'm asking you what Deuteronomy 23:18 has to do with marriage and you cite me some bullshit website that I can't know is legitimate or not.  I'm going by what the Bible SAYS.  Anything else is a red herring.  So please find me a collection of verses that outlaw any of the elements of heterosexual infant rape.  BIBLE VERSES.  In prain Engrish.  If you're so sure the English version has it wrong, please explain WHY all English versions are wrong, or else find an English version that has it right.

Try harder.. This is still a red herring because the explanation you seek was given in post 331 when i Identified the Hebrew word and gave you the definition. Nice to see you finally catching up (your logic and reasoning seems to only be about 4 pages behind at this point.)

You told me about hoe Zanah can refer to a whore that doesn't change the fact that the verse is talking about MONEY.

[downbeatplumb]

There are always nuts running around killing people, I can't really see what's so urgent now. There's the Christian nuts in Africa Joseph Kony etc, Islamic Boko Haram and ISIS etc and the political/criminals accross the world, it has always been this way, in fact more so in the past, so I see no need for exterminations "to the last child", which is what you seem to be having a hard on for.

Again, I'm just a student of history that is identifying a pattern that plays out ever so many generations in the United States. I see the pattern already in motion and to date has yet to disappoint in it's completion of the cycle.

This is why it's been said those who do not know History are doomed to repeat it. History is the record of human nature. In society we always think ourselves better than everyone else. (even the bad guys.) When this self righteousness takes over a society it allows for all sorts of evil justifications. When two large soceities develop this at the same time it always means the same thing. Genocide.

Now, 'the west' is one self righteous society. and the middle East is the other. Ask yourself will one adopt the 'evil' acts of the other? will either ever back down or will it escalate? And so goes the pattern.

I bristle at the suggestion I do not know history. I like to think I know rather more on the subject than you.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

We're skipping one of the most important elements of Drippy's argument, namely that he points to horrible actions done by society and thinks that we approve of whatever society says is okay, rather than using our own sense of empathy-based morality to determine what we feel is actually better for all involved*. Sometimes, powerful people get their way and try to excuse their actions based on jingoism, or religion, or whatever philosophical means they feel can help them achieve their ends... since you're referring to Nazis constantly, I'd point out that the intellectuals (even among his own party) were among the first people Hitler-and-company targeted, since they spoke out against his ideas, his abuse of science, and his violent rhetoric.

What's being skipped here is that the Bible is also (clearly, to an outside observer) a construct of society; in particular, two societies. One was an extremely violent, patriarchal warrior-tribe that believed in slavery, genocide, and blood rituals, among other things we in post-Enlightenment circles consider morally abhorrent. The second was a post-Hellenic Judea and Asia Minor under Roman control, and the reaction of people as they tried to reconcile the ancient teachings with more modern philosophical influences (particularly Paul, of course). All were written by the hands of men--they claimed to be inspired by Gawd, of course, according to Drippy and his kind--and all were constructs of their societies, with all the obvious baggage.

The difference is that we look to society and try to correct it onto an ever-better course, one that takes the maximal good for everyone involved and reduces harm to everyone. They take what was constructed 2500-1700 years ago and try to massage it until they can still tolerate the intolerable things contained within, while simultaneously trying to claim it is we who need to correct our path back onto the program set out by that ancient society. Thus all this bizarre chatter about "obedience to the will of God", which no one can quite discern in a way that everyone else agrees upon, but all seem to agree that it really is The Will of God™ that they've personally tapped into, they have a strong emotional motive for clinging desperately to it and refusing to even listen to others who try to tell them the problem with their Bronze Age moral constructs.

Because they quite literally think of the Bible as "dictated-by-God-to-His-secretaries", they refuse to see the obvious and instead must claim that is is we who "don't get it".

But we do get it. It's as plain as noses on faces. And it's pathetic.

*Edit to Add: When I say "for all involved", I mean that sometimes rights are a trade-off, or they are not supported by the majority but must be minority rights protected against the majority (see both the Federalist papers and the US Constitution). For instance, with your example of abortion and the emotional trap of "sucking baby brains out" (or however you phrased it), our courts determined that it was a far worse evil for the government to dictate to women and their doctors what they were allowed to do to their reproductive systems. They went to great lengths to explain why, and it's available online if you care enough to read Roe or Casey. Another cited example is homosexual behavior, which you referenced earlier... it's another case of there being no harm except to the people who follow a religious book, so their right to liberty was determined to be more important, as was also the case with the recent decision on gay marriage. More people get rights, and while some are offended by that fact for ideological reasons, it really is the greatest good versus the degree of harm, a fairly simple moral/social system that we have developed in this country which should be lauded, not scorned. You Christers whine and scream about it, but the fact is all that is happening is that people are no longer being forced to follow the social constructs of a Bronze Age blood-sacrificing, genocidal sheepherder tribe, and we think that's A Good Thing™.

[Reforged]

[Neo-Scholastic]

Your first error is in thinking that there is a god and you personally understand his will. Your second error is in thinking that a being who would create the system you describe is worthy of worship.  Your third error is in thinking that the fact moral consensus changes over time makes it valueless.  Your fourth error is in thinking atheists don't believe in god for the purpose of avoiding god's stricter later.

I agree that the fourth is speculation although I do think it applies to most atheists even if only as a contributing factor. The third has more to do with epistemology. First people must agree that something is before determining what it is. Either there is universally applicable moral standards or not. Consensus morality is no morality at all. But the first two are are not errors, just wishful thinking and rationalization on your part.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

  Your fourth error is in thinking atheists don't believe in god for the purpose of avoiding god's stricter later.

I agree that the fourth is speculation although I do think it applies to most atheists even if only as a contributing factor. 

Edited for relevance/brevity. Sorry, both of you.

Chad- we constantly say  that we find "God's Laws", as written by priests and prophets of old, to be immoral, not just something we don't want to follow. It's a bit like someone from Eritrea telling you that the reason you find female genital mutilation immoral is because you "just don't want to obey the Laws of God". When you reply no, you find the practice abhorrent on its own, no matter what his God supposedly says about it, he replies, "No, you just don't want to obey God. At least, it's a contributing factor to your nonbelief."

What can you say to a person who accuses you of immorality because you don't follow his religious practices (because you find them degrading to women and the ridiculous vestiges of a Patriarchal culture that should have died out long ago, except for the religious part of that culture's memetic survival properties), and tells you that you are just being defiant of God?

The part that amazes me the most is that America is so culturally isolated, despite the modern communications age, that our Christians cannot even see that the same Bronze Age "values" you find abhorrent in other Mideast religions are also present in your own religion from the same region... yet no matter how many times we point it out, you continue to insist that you have moral clarity from (that one set of) scriptures that originated in that time/place/culture, and that it is we who cannot understand morality.

We understand just fine. Enough to reject Patriarchal morality-systems and try to press for ones that value all human beings equally, ones that don't involve blood-sacrifice-magic or genocide or slavery or destroying free speech via the Death Penalty (et cetera). The genetic roots of your faith are plain as day to anyone who reads your scriptures and compares them to others-- that's why we say the surest way to become an atheist is to really read the Bible.

[downbeatplumb]

[Jenny A]

[Ravenshire]

Drich, you're right about pederasty. In Plato's Symposium, some of the participants rationalized the practice of older men taking young lovers by claiming that the youths benefited from the relationship. I predict that we will start to see attempts by some perverts to soon do the same. After all, aren't they helping the vulnerable boys to embrace their budding sexuality? They did it "for the children!"

What is it about informed consent that leave you religiousites so absolutely clueless?