Belief in God and Murderous Rampages

Lord Tammerlain said:

In honor of this long running thread now at 246 pages




I have decided to ask this forum a question. I believe the poll is clear


I timed out on the poll

Poll Option

1. I am agnostic/atheist and have not murdered anyone so far

2. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes.

3. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist will not go on a murderous rampage

4. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist I would go on a murderous rampage

5. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

6. I am a believer in god and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

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'Murder' is a legal term. Not all killing is murder, under the law.
There's a whole category missing, killing that's acceptable in religion but murder in secular terms.

Cephus said:

Depends on who you're pushing. Would it be bad to push Hitler in front of a bus?

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If there is no objective good or bad then it shouldn't "depend" at all. Pushing Hitler into the path of a bus would be just the same as pushing a small child.

Grand Mal said:

'Murder' is a legal term. Not all killing is murder, under the law.
There's a whole category missing, killing that's acceptable in religion but murder in secular terms.

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Murder is a legal term, true, but it has extra legal meaning as well, like theft. Was it murder for Nazis to kill 6 million Jews? Was it theft to confiscate their property. Most would likely say yes to both.

X Factor said:

Murder is a legal term, true, but it has extra legal meaning as well, like theft. Was it murder for Nazis to kill 6 million Jews? Was it theft to confiscate their property. Most would likely say yes to both.

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Um, yeah, that's true. Murder and theft often happen together.
Here's one- did the Nazi's kill Jews for religious reasons? Not that it changes the whole 'murder' thing, but that whole Nazi scenario sounds pretty Old Testament. Like, God stopping the rotation of the Earth to give Joshua time to kill every man, woman and child.

X Factor said:

Sometimes that's true, other times it isn't.

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Good and bad are human constructs thus it is always subjective. Luckily most people agree on the basics of good and bad though.

X Factor said:

If there is no objective good or bad then it shouldn't "depend" at all. Pushing Hitler into the path of a bus would be just the same as pushing a small child.

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You miss the whole point of objectivity. According to you or I, pushing Hitler in front of a bus might be a subjectively good thing. According to his followers or his family, it might be a subjectively bad thing. Not everyone agrees that it would be a good or bad thing. That's why it's subjective. It depends on your point of view.

Cephus said:

You miss the whole point of objectivity. According to you or I, pushing Hitler in front of a bus might be a subjectively good thing. According to his followers or his family, it might be a subjectively bad thing. Not everyone agrees that it would be a good or bad thing. That's why it's subjective. It depends on your point of view.

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People seem to forget that even Hitler thought he was doing a good thing.

Cephus said:

Depends on who you're pushing. Would it be bad to push Hitler in front of a bus?

Click to expand...

X Factor said:

If there is no objective good or bad then it shouldn't "depend" at all. Pushing Hitler into the path of a bus would be just the same as pushing a small child.

Click to expand...

Cephus said:

You miss the whole point of objectivity. According to you or I, pushing Hitler in front of a bus might be a subjectively good thing. According to his followers or his family, it might be a subjectively bad thing. Not everyone agrees that it would be a good or bad thing. That's why it's subjective. It depends on your point of view.

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At what point in his life would this pushing in front of a bus occur?

Before or after the concentration camps?

Before, it would be murder, after it could be considered to be acting in self defense of others

Lord Tammerlain said:

At what point in his life would this pushing in front of a bus occur?

Before or after the concentration camps?

Before, it would be murder, after it could be considered to be acting in self defense of others

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Its also possible it wouldn't kill him anyway, and if he was left relatively unharmed his followers would see it as divine protection for him.

Lord Tammerlain said:

Timed out on posting the poll. 5 Minutes is just not enough time

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IMHO, use a WORD file, copy & paste it all in within a few seconds ................. works for my dumbass ................

cuban smokes said:

IMHO, use a WORD file, copy & paste it all in within a few seconds ................. works for my dumbass ................

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I did but my options were over 100 characters so I times out trying to edit them. I don't post polls very often so I had no idea it had that limitation

SouthernDemocrat said:

Good and bad are human constructs thus it is always subjective. Luckily most people agree on the basics of good and bad though.

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That's not "lucky" at all. That's just people recognizing the difference between good and bad, or maybe right and wrong is the better way to put it. Let me ask you, when you give your opinion on politics, do you talk about what the right thing to do is?

X Factor said:

That's not "lucky" at all. That's just people recognizing the difference between good and bad, or maybe right and wrong is the better way to put it. Let me ask you, when you give your opinion on politics, do you talk about what the right thing to do is?

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No, it's not people recognizing the differences between good and bad. In most societies, people share similar values, which is why laws exist as they do and why they are different from society to society. If I give me opinion on politics, I'm talking about what is the right thing to do FOR ME. Or are you saying that if I give my opinion on politics, I am talking about what is the OBJECTIVELY right thing to do? That's awesome, X. I'll post all of my political opinions and anything you disagree with is automatically the wrong thing to do.

Is it becoming clear why there is no objective good/bad?

X Factor said:

Is good simply the absence of doing bad things?

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It would be a very good start. If everyone refrained from doing bad things the world would be a wonderful place and, imo, more would do good things. But it won't happen so we will never find out.

SouthernDemocrat said:

Good and bad are human constructs thus it is always subjective. Luckily most people agree on the basics of good and bad though.

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Maybe not only human. Elephants and other animals which live in herds or packs have pretty well defined codes of conduct. And may apply sanctions, such as expelling 'offenders'. I think it highly probable that our more recent pre-human ancestors had well developed concepts of 'right and wrong'. Evolutionary psychology rules, OK?

Sweden said:

Maybe not only human. Elephants and other animals which live in herds or packs have pretty well defined codes of conduct. And may apply sanctions, such as expelling 'offenders'. I think it highly probable that our more recent pre-human ancestors had well developed concepts of 'right and wrong'. Evolutionary psychology rules, OK?

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I would agree, its quite possible that our concepts of "good and bad" go back millions of years with our ancestors.

X Factor said:

That's not "lucky" at all. That's just people recognizing the difference between good and bad, or maybe right and wrong is the better way to put it. Let me ask you, when you give your opinion on politics, do you talk about what the right thing to do is?

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Yes, I also will use the term "common decency", but by that I mean what the majority of people would agree as being good or right. It doesn't change the fact that the notions of good or bad, and right or wrong, are human constructs, or at least constructs of higher level sentient animals (animals like elephants and bonobos also have concepts of right and wrong or good and bad).

CaptainCourtesy said:

No, it's not people recognizing the differences between good and bad. In most societies, people share similar values, which is why laws exist as they do and why they are different from society to society. If I give me opinion on politics, I'm talking about what is the right thing to do FOR ME. Or are you saying that if I give my opinion on politics, I am talking about what is the OBJECTIVELY right thing to do? That's awesome, X. I'll post all of my political opinions and anything you disagree with is automatically the wrong thing to do.

Is it becoming clear why there is no objective good/bad?

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Isn't that pretty much what you do anyway? :2razz: CC. You're sounding like a Sith and you're the one speaking in absolutes. I already said that there is subjective good/bad, quite a bit in fact. My unconcern over AGW is, no doubt, wrong to some but it feels so right to me. :lol: Let me ask you this, if a parent sends their gay kid to conversion therapy, is that a good or a bad thing to do? If I insist that changing someone's own gender is actually physically impossible, am I right or wrong about that? If I say that there exists an objective good/bad, am I objectively wrong about that?

SouthernDemocrat said:

Yes, I also will use the term "common decency", but by that I mean what the majority of people would agree as being good or right. It doesn't change the fact that the notions of good or bad, and right or wrong, are human constructs, or at least constructs of higher level sentient animals (animals like elephants and bonobos also have concepts of right and wrong or good and bad).

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So what makes you so, sometimes, hostile to other opinions? Weren't you bugged when folks compared antifa to white supremacists? If I recall, you said one is so, so much worse. According to you, you are no more right/wrong than anyone else. Many people, maybe even most, who say they believe there is no objective right or wrong, frankly, often demonstrate that they don't really believe that.

Believe and non belief in god does not make someone a murderer. There are examples from both sides. Period. Murder is about having access to guns (oh wait...what?)


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X Factor said:

So what makes you so, sometimes, hostile to other opinions? Weren't you bugged when folks compared antifa to white supremacists? If I recall, you said one is so, so much worse. According to you, you are no more right/wrong than anyone else. Many people, maybe even most, who say they believe there is no objective right or wrong, frankly, often demonstrate that they don't really believe that.

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I am sorry, but I think this argument you are making is nonsensical. Let's say that I am right and there is no objective right and wrong and thus right and wrong are merely human constructs. What we consider to be right and wrong are merely what we consider to be right or wrong due to instinct - such as it is right to protect your offspring, or in other cases what we consider right or wrong is due to what the vast majority of us collectively consider to be right or wrong - such as it is wrong to steal from others.

In the example you provided above, I asserted that I did not like either group, Antifa or White Supremacists, but as White Supremacists have caused much more human suffering, they are the more wrong group. That is still subjective. A white supremacist would see nothing evil in their beliefs and actions but rather would think what they are doing is good and honorable. Even Hitler thought he was doing good.

Just because something is a human construct doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but rather it means that it would not exist if we did not exist. For example, government is a human construct. Government exists, but it would not exist if we did not exist. This is in contrast to physical laws or laws of biology like evolution or gene flow that would exist regardless of whether we exist or not.

I mean come on, do you honestly think that humanity first decided that things like murder and theft were wrong when Moses came down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments? Moses: "Thou shalt not kill". Everyone else: "Why we never thought of that. Now we know it is objectively wrong to kill."

Lord Tammerlain said:

In honor of this long running thread now at 246 pages




I have decided to ask this forum a question. I believe the poll is clear


I timed out on the poll

Poll Option

1. I am agnostic/atheist and have not murdered anyone so far

2. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes.

3. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist will not go on a murderous rampage

4. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist I would go on a murderous rampage

5. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

6. I am a believer in god and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

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If not for my belief in The Lord and my fear of the law, I would have murdered several people, by now.

apdst said:

If not for my belief in The Lord and my fear of the law, I would have murdered several people, by now.

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Ah, so in other words you have no self control and no respect for human life. You need to believe in an unproven divine entity and use it as a crutch to prevent yourself from being a murderer. And you say you lean very conservative? A true conservative would be self-reliant and wouldn't need this false crutch.

Lord Tammerlain said:

In honor of this long running thread now at 246 pages




I have decided to ask this forum a question. I believe the poll is clear


I timed out on the poll

Poll Option

1. I am agnostic/atheist and have not murdered anyone so far

2. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes.

3. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist will not go on a murderous rampage

4. I am a believer in God and have not murdered anyone and if I found out god did not exist I would go on a murderous rampage

5. I am agnostic/atheist and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

6. I am a believer in god and have murdered people (not an admission of guilt for legal purposes

Click to expand...

Define "God". It appears that you are using a Christian only perspective. As such it's apparent that your post is driving a point. Why not just spit it out and tell us?

Former GOP said:

Ah, so in other words you have no self control and no respect for human life. You need to believe in an unproven divine entity and use it as a crutch to prevent yourself from being a murderer. And you say you lean very conservative? A true conservative would be self-reliant and wouldn't need this false crutch.

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Having had a family member who, along with her children, was beaten severely on multiple occasions by her husband...who was a former police officer whose father was a prosecutor...and then she was raped by this same person along with her daughter...and now seeing the ongoing legal battle and how inept the justice system had been in solving this issue?

Yes. I would have resorted to murder without my religion. The law does not create morals for me. And historically speaking? The law is very flexible on abuse of individuals. Any group of people can resort to violence when they don't have something inside stopping them. Perhaps for you that is a concrete set of morals that you didn't arrive at from religion, but from some other cultural pressure. But for many? That cultural pressure IS religion. And it DOES provide a concrete foundation that separates them from a more basic form of behavior that is more animalistic.

I'm still not sure how much my religion would stop me if someone harmed someone closer to me than extended family. I know that if I had been presented a legal opportunity to shoot the bastard...I would have without hesitation.


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