Religion, Science, Scepticism, Philosophy and things metaphysical

[SirRumpole]

I was pointing out that on a personal level a person shouldn't be forced to help, because that is a breach of their personal freedoms.

I never mentioned people "being forced to help", you brought that up as one of your distractions. We were discussing YOUR morals, since you are claiming a moral superiority over Christians, and I was pointing out that many Christians actually HELP homeless people via the Salvos, St Vincent de Paul, voting for parties committed to providing social housing etc, while you wash your hands and say it's not your problem.

Never mind nuance , it's cold hard reality, your "moral superiority" means nothing when it comes to the real world and it's problems.

 

[Value Collector]

I never mentioned people "being forced to help", you brought that up as one of your distractions. We were discussing YOUR morals,

you said - allowing people to sleep on the streets instead of providing affordable housing

Now as I have already discussed that I supported social safety nets, I thought you were saying "allowing" in terms of should we legislate that people are made to help.

was pointing out that many Christians actually HELP homeless people via the Salvos, St Vincent de Paul,

so do many atheist and secular organisations, whats your point?

not to mention that secular charities tend to be the most effective, donating money to a church is one of the more wasteful ways to contribute, very little ends up getting to where its needed.

 

[SirRumpole]

you said - allowing people to sleep on the streets instead of providing affordable housing

Now as I have already discussed that I supported social safety nets, I thought you were saying "allowing" in terms of should we legislate that people are made to help.

By "people" made to help, you mean our governments being forced to provide a safety net ? Well that is what they are there for as I think we both agree. What should we do if they don't provide that net ?

An out of control train is heading down a line that has 3 children on it, and you can do nothing except you have a chance to push a button that switch the track so the train goes onto a second line with only 1 child on it.

what is the moral thing to do?

Theoretical and not likely to arise in real life.

So do you think it would have been more or less moral to nuke 100,000 soldiers instead of civilians if it achieved the same result ?

 

[Value Collector]

Never mind nuance , it's cold hard reality, your "moral superiority" means nothing when it comes to the real world and it's problems.

Did you see these stats I mentioned?

On average 22,000 civilians died per day as a result of ww2?
thats about 55,000,000 civilians during the whole war, only 150,000 died in Hiroshima and 75,000 in Nagasaki nuclear attacks. So yes I think ending the war earlier might have been moral. In the whole War, about 5 civilians died for every 1 soldier.

Do they factor into your thinking about whether using Nukes to end the war was justified?

I what about this scenario I gave

Picture this situation.

An out of control train is heading down a line that has 3 children on it, and you can do nothing except you have a chance to push a button that switch the track so the train goes onto a second line with only 1 child on it.

what is the moral thing to do?

I don't think some one that chooses to sit back and just watch the 3 kids get run over is automatically more moral that the guy that chose to switch tracks,

 

[Value Collector]

By "people" made to help, you mean our governments being forced to provide a safety net ? Well that is what they are there for as I think we both agree. What should we do if they don't provide that net ?

No, I mean an individual.

I think the government does has a social contract to help, I am saying it wouldn't be moral to "force" an individual to help outside his obligation to pay taxes etc.

It is honourable for him to decide to help, but he shouldn't be forced.

So do you think it would have been more or less moral to nuke 100,000 soldiers instead of civilians if it achieved the same result ?

100,000 soldiers are still people.

But where can you nuke 100,000 soldiers without hitting civilians?

 

[SirRumpole]

It is honourable for him to decide to help, but he shouldn't be forced.

I NEVER SAID THEY SHOULD !!!

 

[Value Collector]

I NEVER SAID THEY SHOULD !!!

I know that now, but as I said thats what I thought you were saying, because I had already explained I am happy with government safety nets etc, and they already exist, so your 1 sentence was easily misinterpreted.

But as I said, from in individual stand point its honourable if a person puts in extra to help, but its not immoral if they don't.

Think of it like donating a kidney.

There are plenty of people that need kidneys right now.

Is it Immoral to not donate one of your kidneys to them? I don't think so, off course if you did it would be honourable, but not doing it isn't immoral, no one has the right to demand your kidney, unless if maybe you are the reason theirs needs replacing.

What would be Immoral is doing something to damage a persons kidney.

 

[bellenuit]

Well I can see that on this matter, we are clearly not on the same page of the dictionary.

So I think I will simply have to leave you with your belief in your subjectively perceived morality concept.

Well you could convince me otherwise if you were to provide evidence to support your view on morality. You have left VC and I explain as best as we can what we believe constitutes morality, but you have just provided a fuzzy "invisible magic man" explanation to support your view.

What is morality?
From where do we get it in your view?
What evidence so you have to support your view?
If it is theistic inspired, which particular deity is doing the inspiring?
Does you defence of the God of the OT yesterday indicate that those were moral acts by God.

As much information as you care to give so that we can assess its merits.

Knowing you, you will probably retort that it is all in your posts and to go and read them. No it isn't and even if it were, there is no reason you couldn't supply a summary post that is a definitive explanation so there is no misunderstanding.

 

[bellenuit]

Personally I think you're a little too hung up on the innocent lives God takes away in the OT (alongside the vile). Followers of the NT tend not to make a big deal out of that.

And it is patently obvious why. They either must condone (as you tried to do) the abhorrent acts of the God of the OT or they must reject the OT in its entirety. However, they can't do the latter as the OT is the basis and justification upon which much of the NT stands. Without the OT, the NT is just a story of another good man and his philosophy. So rather than face that choice, they avoid the issue.

I believe that the morality revealed in the NT is for the human race, and that it fits in nicely with the Morality Argument, and our conscience.

What did the morality of the NT reveal that wasn't already known?

 

[SirRumpole]

But where can you nuke 100,000 soldiers without hitting civilians?

Army, Navy, Airforce bases. Military targets could have been hit instead of civilian ones.

 

[cynic]

Well you could convince me otherwise if you were to provide evidence to support your view on morality. You have left VC and I explain as best as we can what we believe constitutes morality, but you have just provided a fuzzy "invisible magic man" explanation to support your view.

What is morality?
From where do we get it in your view?
What evidence so you have to support your view?
If it is theistic inspired, which particular deity is doing the inspiring?
Does you defence of the God of the OT yesterday indicate that those were moral acts by God.

As much information as you care to give so that we can assess its merits.

Knowing you, you will probably retort that it is all in your posts and to go and read them. No it isn't and even if it were, there is no reason you couldn't supply a summary post that is a definitive explanation so there is no misunderstanding.

Firstly, I have no intention of bringing theism into this argument.

I reiterate that I was pointing out a quite straightforward observation, that morality by the very definition of the word (which I have already posted to this thread) cannot exist in the absence of purpose, and that the secular viewpoint deprives the universe of this essential property. Hence the purported existence of "secular morality" is a fallacy.

One can argue, as much as one likes, about consensus agreements of subjective perceptions of behaviour. But that still fails to address the problem of correct, and incorrect, being objectively (as opposed to subjectively) determinable qualities.

Edit: An important point that I feel needs to be emphasized is that this is not a claim that people preferring the secular viewpoint are devoid of a moral compass. What I am saying is , if the secular viewpoint is correct, no morality can ever have existed for anyone, irrespective of whether or not their chosen philosopy is theoretically able to support the moral concept!

 

[Value Collector]

Army, Navy, Airforce bases. Military targets could have been hit instead of civilian ones.

And you don’t think they would be surrounded by civilians, and have civilians working there?

What I don’t think you understand was that Japanese cities were already being bombed, he nuke was just an extension of that.

 

[cynic]

...
Does you defence of the God of the OT yesterday indicate that those were moral acts by God.
...

Now seeing something like this, from an intelligent person, has got me a trifle confused! I strongly suspect that you have misinterpreted some of the contents of my posts.

Could you please clarify what you are saying here, by answering the following:

What exactly is it, that you are accusing me of having defended?
and
Where in my posts did you get that impression?

 

[cynic]

And you don’t think they would be surrounded by civilians, and have civilians working there?

What I don’t think you understand was that Japanese cities were already being bombed, he nuke was just an extension of that.

Quite true!

I have also heard that some cultures, deliberately situate schools and hospitals, in close proximity to military establishments, in the hope that this may deter invaders from ballistic assault on same.

 

[SirRumpole]

What I don’t think you understand was that Japanese cities were already being bombed, he nuke was just an extension of that.

It happened , so it was moral ? Is that your reasoning ?

 

[Value Collector]

It happened , so it was moral ? Is that your reasoning ?

No my reasoning is that civilians were dying everyday from the exisiting bombing campaign, the two nukes ended that.

It’s not like the situation was ok for civilians and no one was dying until the nukes dropped, the war was killing people everyday day already, Our soldiers their soldiers, friendly civilians and Japanese civilians were all being killed every day.

You only want to focus on the civilians that died in the nukes, and not the ones that were saved by ending the war.

 

[SirRumpole]

No my reasoning is that civilians were dying everyday from the exisiting bombing campaign, the two nukes ended that.

It would have been ended if the nukes were dropped on other than civilians. The Japanese had no defence and would have surrendered. Hundreds of thousands need not have died. But again your reasoning shows little of the morality you claim to possess. Killing civilians is fine, that is just warped.

 

[Value Collector]

It would have been ended if the nukes were dropped on other than civilians. The Japanese had no defence and would have surrendered. Hundreds of thousands need not have died. But again your reasoning shows little of the morality you claim to possess. Killing civilians is fine, that is just warped.

Keep in mind my position was this

1- I don’t have enough information, it may have been moral from a self Defence position, but I could be wrong since my decision doesn’t include all the facts

I am not claiming it was moral, but that it may have been, depending on the situation.

Also I am not sure why you consider the lives of the “other than civilians” catergory as less important.

To me all lives matter, and I would choose the option that did the least amount of damage, which may have been the nukes, who knows as I said I don’t have all the information.

But military leaders will normally choose the option that minimizes the harm to their forces.

 

[bellenuit]

Now seeing something like this, from an intelligent person, has got me a trifle confused! I strongly suspect that you have misinterpreted some of the contents of my posts.

Could you please clarify what you are saying here, by answering the following:

What exactly is it, that you are accusing me of having defended?
and
Where in my posts did you get that impression?

I had posted the following: So you accept that God exhorted and commanded acts that were not in accordance with the morality his son was later going to preach to the world? That’s my very point. The morality of Christianity is not absolute, objective and is far from perfect.

You responded with your drug manufacture analogy, which seemed very much like a justification of those vile acts to me. You responded:

If a manufacturer of a wonder drug, issued its products in bottles of pills, labelled with clear warnings of dangers from overdosing, accompanied by clear instructions that exactly one pill is to be taken every six hours, would one then be justified in blaming that manufacturer, when some people suffered ill health, after mistakenly taking six pills every hour?

Would it now be fair to declare the drug toxic ,irrespective of the potentially beneficial results, that one may derive from correct usage?

Is the manufacturer to be perpetually held to blame for the misunderstandings of its patrons?

Can you see how strongly this analogy relates to the key anti theistic arguments?

 

[bellenuit]

Firstly, I have no intention of bringing theism into this argument.

I reiterate that I was pointing out a quite straightforward observation, that morality by the very definition of the word (which I have already posted to this thread) cannot exist in the absence of purpose, and that the secular viewpoint deprives the universe of this essential property. Hence the purported existence of "secular morality" is a fallacy.

Is your definition so long and complex that you couldn't have posted it here again to save us perusing through pages of posts. I certainly do not recall you posting your definition. However, this is a definition from my dictionary: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour.

Although evolution does not have purpose, we can have purpose in our daily existence. For instance, we may wish to create an environment where we can live without fear. We can develop moral principles to help us achieve that goal. That is all within a secular framework.

One can argue, as much as one likes, about consensus agreements of subjective perceptions of behaviour. But that still fails to address the problem of correct, and incorrect, being objectively (as opposed to subjectively) determinable qualities.

As I said, I am happy to maintain that our morality is subjective.

However, you still have failed to explain your views of morality. What is your definition? Where does the morality you espouse come from? How is it objective and how do we determine it is objective?[/QUOTE]