page 2 has a high tolerance for ambiguity, and knows it can go through life without having to validate with eiter scripture or solemn godlessnes, every little self affirming emotion that reminds it that it exists

4/25/2007 9:49:07 PM

^ I shall ponder this.

4/26/2007 1:03:34 AM

Quote :

"I believe this young man was both sick and vicious, that his actions were both heinous and the result of a phenomenon that we must try to understand precisely so that we can prevent it in future. I have no sympathy for him."

but mr. atheist, who are you to call him sick and vicious? if there is no god and thus no absolute moral standard, then morality is relative. what's right for you might not necessarily be right for him. he thought the murders would result in the greater good of mankind, namely to put a stop to the mistreatment of "the weak and defenseless" people like himself. how can you say he was wrong for doing what he did? i'd say it's a pretty noble cause, i mean he gave his life for it. you can't call a line crooked unless you know what a straight one looks like.

4/26/2007 2:42:48 AM

^ youre either a troll or a retard.

so, which is it?

4/26/2007 3:11:08 AM

Quote :

"if there is no god and thus no absolute moral standard, then morality is relative. what's right for you might not necessarily be right for him."

One can have objective moral standards and values without God or religion.

4/26/2007 4:47:32 AM

^ That is a basic premise of ethics. But some believe that their religious beliefs are inextricable from their moral standards.

4/26/2007 5:39:46 AM

Quote :

"but mr. atheist, who are you to call him sick and vicious?"

He's a person with a mind.

Quote :

"if there is no god and thus no absolute moral standard, then morality is relative."

And relative to Mr. Dawkins, the shooting was apparently sick and vicious.

Quote :

"he thought the murders would result in the greater good of mankind"

Nobody can know the long-term results of any action.

Quote :

"how can you say he was wrong for doing what he did?"

He's a person with a mind.

Quote :

"you can't call a line crooked unless you know what a straight one looks like."

Not a valid analogy.

4/26/2007 9:04:20 AM

^nice

4/26/2007 9:35:24 AM

Quote :

"He's a person with a mind."

how profound, of course he can literally speak or write something since he has a mind

but i was referring to his passing of moral judgement on cho

Quote :

"And relative to Mr. Dawkins, the shooting was apparently sick and vicious."

if morality is relative, then you shouldn't speak negatively about someone else's moral behavior. if you do, then you're claiming that YOUR moral standard of behavior is more RIGHT then theirs. but that cannot be the case unless there is an absolute standard by which to compare the two.

Quote :

"Not a valid analogy."

it's entirely valid. use your brain. unless you know what perfection is, you cannot say that something is imperfect

4/26/2007 11:40:29 AM

Quote :

"how profound, of course he can literally speak or write something since he has a mind but i was referring to his passing of moral judgement on cho"

A mind isn't sufficient to make a judgment? Do you need divine instructions to judge 32 people getting gunned down as a bad thing?

Quote :

"if morality is relative, then you shouldn't speak negatively about someone else's moral behavior. if you do, then you're claiming that YOUR moral standard of behavior is more RIGHT then theirs. but that cannot be the case unless there is an absolute standard by which to compare the two."

This is what you are doing:

1. If someone criticizes another person's morals, he is saying that his own morality is objectively better.
2. If morality is relative, nothing can be objectively better than something else.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Therefore, a person who believes that morality is relative should not criticize another person's morals.

The problem comes with #1. People who think morality is relative are not saying their judgments are right objectively; they're saying their judgments are right TO THEM. I don't know why you'd insert the notion of an absolute standard.

[Edited on April 26, 2007 at 12:52 PM. Reason : switch 1 and 2]

4/26/2007 12:48:11 PM

Quote :

"A mind isn't sufficient to make a judgment? Do you need divine instructions to judge 32 people getting gunned down as a bad thing?"

you can make judgements without divine instructions, but only because you have a conscience written on your heart that tells you what is absolutely right or wrong. you just refuse to accept where that conscience came from.

Quote :

"The problem comes with #1. People who think morality is relative are not saying their judgments are right objectively; they're saying their judgments are right TO THEM. I don't know why you'd insert the notion of an absolute standard."

why does it matter then, if their judgements are only right TO THEM? if something isn't right or wrong for ALL people at ALL times, then it's just absurd to make any type of judgement on someone else. what if it was right TO CHO, to murder 32 people?

do you seriously believe that there are no absolute right or wrongs? is there ever a time where raping and murdering a 6 year old girl is not wrong?

4/26/2007 1:34:48 PM

Why is it impossible for the notion that murder is wrong to have come from nature? One would think that evolution would instill a directive into a species that tells each individual member of that species not to go around mindlessly killing its own kind (or at the very least, members of its own family/community), otherwise that species would kill itself out of the gene pool.

4/26/2007 1:37:30 PM

Quote :

"what title? this? Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech i dont get it"

yeah... that title doesn't give much information. I was referring to the thread title.

But after glancing at the comments I'm going to have to switch to "probably won't agree with it"

4/26/2007 2:09:52 PM

Quote :

"Why is it impossible for the notion that murder is wrong to have come from nature? One would think that evolution would instill a directive into a species that tells each individual member of that species not to go around mindlessly killing its own kind (or at the very least, members of its own family/community), otherwise that species would kill itself out of the gene pool."

ok well let's say you're right, and that nature did give us some conscious that tells us murder is wrong. what about the sick and disabled then? a naturalist would say we are governed by natural selection and survival of the fittest. so why then does our conscience direct us to go against that, and to help the disabled and feed the sick and cure the diseased? if they are using up our resources and contribute nothing to society, they would just be a liability and we should definitely prefer them to promptly expire. but this is not the case. i've never seen anyone going around killing people at hospitals or shooting homeless or disabled people. quite the opposite. everyone feels a sense of moral "ought" to help them. this would not be the case if or conscience came from nature.

4/26/2007 3:06:25 PM

^ http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=evolution+of+altruism+primate&btnG=Search

Read some of those.

[Edited on April 26, 2007 at 3:21 PM. Reason : ]

4/26/2007 3:17:40 PM

Because natural selection has developed in us a sense of community. It could be that someone who is sick actually has a vital role in a given community, so seeing him towards better health is for the best. Or perhaps the elderly in a community have valuable knowledge/experience that warrants the rest of is troupe taking care of him. Or maybe groups of animals just work better when each individual feels that he can count on the others to be there in his time of need. There isn't any one perfect explanation for why natural selection has endowed us with "morals," although there were obviously selective pressures that encouraged and fostered their incorporation.

4/26/2007 3:27:00 PM

Quote :

"you can make judgements without divine instructions, but only because you have a conscience written on your heart that tells you what is absolutely right or wrong."

Aw, that sounds cute. But no, I won't believe that without biological evidence.

Quote :

"why does it matter then, if their judgements are only right TO THEM?"

Because it concerns their ethics... I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Quote :

"if something isn't right or wrong for ALL people at ALL times, then it's just absurd to make any type of judgement on someone else."

You've already said this. I rejected it because it includes the assumption that a subjective moral view must conform to an objective moral view (which can't even exist if morals are relative). My ears are always open if you can make a sound argument though.

Quote :

"what if it was right TO CHO, to murder 32 people?"

Then he would probably... try to murder 32 people. Seems like this contradicts your heart-writing theory more than my beliefs.

Quote :

"do you seriously believe that there are no absolute right or wrongs?"

If an "absolute right" means "something that is desirable to, and independent of, every possible point of view," then that's correct. I don't believe in absolute rightness.

Quote :

"is there ever a time where raping and murdering a 6 year old girl is not wrong?"

I swear, it's like you can't even grasp the concept of morality being relative.

4/26/2007 4:28:57 PM

Everyone left

5/1/2007 12:02:16 PM

^ The answer to the question at the topic of the thread?

5/1/2007 12:05:25 PM

^Sadness that people quit responding.

5/1/2007 4:30:18 PM

Where is atheism bad things happen? I'll tell you where... IT'S THERE CAUSING THOSE BAD THINGS TO HAPPEN!!!

5/1/2007 4:53:00 PM

Quote :

"If an "absolute right" means "something that is desirable to, and independent of, every possible point of view," then that's correct. I don't believe in absolute rightness."

no..."absolute" meaning truth that governs all people at all places at all times.

5/2/2007 12:56:46 AM

I don't know how that's supposed to be different from goodness to everyone and independent of everyone, but whatever. It's clear that your conception of good is based on whatever you think God says is right, not on what has any actual positive consequences.

5/2/2007 11:46:02 AM

If you need a god to have morals, how do you know which god to pick?

5/2/2007 4:54:46 PM

I was disappointed.

The entire article ceased being interesting to me early on when I realized that atheists don't go whining to "God" or resort to the sort of culturally-conditioned outward expressions of comforting sorrow and grieving that religious people do. They sit around momentarily frightened that they're just as likely to be next, then comforted that they're still not that likely to be next, get a little pissed that life's a game of survival, and then move on.

I've had the uncommonly atheistic response to the VT shootings described above despite a great sense to "need to feel bad" for what happened.

Half of me feels like I've abandoned my soul because of this, the other half just says I've learned to cope and find social rituals bizarre.

5/2/2007 7:00:53 PM

Quote :

"you can make judgements without divine instructions, but only because you have a conscience written on your heart that tells you what is absolutely right or wrong"

Does God write things on our hearts because they're good, or are things good because God wrote them on our hearts?

5/22/2007 4:32:40 PM

Quote :

"i stopped reading at Quote : "What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil." "

5/22/2007 4:47:03 PM

that was very well written

I applaud Mr. Dawkins

5/24/2007 10:37:40 AM

Good opinion piece.

Quote :

"We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong."

And I agree.

5/24/2007 2:51:59 PM