# Believers deem atheists as untrustworthy as rapists

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-deem-atheists-as-untrustworthy-as-rapists/604739>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 1, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-deem-atheists-as-untrustworthy-as-rapists/604739 "2011-12-01T20:17:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/believers-deem-atheists-as-untrustworthy-as-rapists/604739/142 "2011-12-06T01:29:44Z")

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> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Ooh, isn’t that clever.
> 
> But I imagine that if you spend a few minutes thinking about it, you’ll see the flaw in your argument. By your logic, anyone who appeals to any authority is demonstrating “lower level reasoning”. Anyone who cites a paper or a book is demonstrating “lower level reasoning”. Your treatment of Kohlberg as a trustworthy sense demonstrates “lower level reasoning”.

You really seem to be struggling badly to understand this. Moral reasoning is the justification one gives for the resolution to an ethical dilemma, or to the justification of a behavior. If you are writing a paper in which you say that one should behave in a certain way because that’s what Kohlberg says you should do, then yes, that would be a low level of reasoning.

> [@](#):
>
> If you want to keep tying yourself in knots like that, go right ahead. As for me, since the original poster has left and the thread has wandered from its original topic, I believe I’ll depart. Good day.

I do hope as you leave that you finally understand the matter.

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