What are the non-religious objections to murdering humans?
Why, other than the opinions of one religion or another, or one moral or another are there to killing?
That is, is there something in science that says killing is bad?
I’m asking flat out, why should we illegalize killing? If you had to support illegalization of killing such as murder, without religious or moral objections, how would you do this? What other arguments are there?
Self interest.
If it is legalized, I and my children are more likely to die, and I don’t want that.
Humans are by nature social animals. We’ve evolved physically, psychologically, and culturally to be dependant on each other. An unsanctioned killing of one member of the group by another is damaging to the social cohesion and psychologically injurious to the individuals of the group. We make rules against unsanctioned killings to avoid trauma to the group and the individual, and to promote stability.
I want specifically a scientific reasoning, not personal interests. I should have also clarified that in the first post sorry.
Pravnik, would you argue then that societies such as Greece, or Germanic cultures were “unstable”?
Greece was very war-like, the Spartans had no regard for life what-so-ever, not as we view it today.
How about Japanese society? In Shogunate Japan it was not uncommon for a man to kill another in the middle of the street over such a thing as propper “respect”.
Were these societies chaotic and incapable of advancing based on this level of tollerated killing?
This seems to be more a matter of common sense than ‘religion’ or ‘science’. To kill another person is to end a life unnecessarily. Where does religion or science come into play here? To use religion as your basis to not kill a person seems sort of–primitive.
Science determines neither the “goodness” or “badness” of anything. Your thesis is faulty.
You missed the operative word: “unsanctioned.” All cultures engage in killings that are sanctioned by the culture, whether it be declaring war on another, fighting a duel, or killing a member of one’s own group for failing to observe the group’s laws. Likewise, all cultures criminalize killings unsanctioned by the group. In no culture can all members of the group kill any other at any time for any reason.
Well, you’ve been given a pretty succinct explanation based on simple sociological principles. Are you asking for something from one of the “hard” sciences, such as geology or physics?
Science does not weigh in on matters of “good” and “bad”. Science measures things and makes predictions about what will happen based on those measurements. The closest you might come to that would be Social Scientists (anthropoligists, etc) weighing in on the relative survival benefits to a society of various behaviors.
The examples you gave of violent societies miss the mark. While those societies might have had looser rules about killing, there were still rules. I challenge you to find a society that lasted for any extended period of time in which killing, for any reason one might choose, was sactioned.
If you are implying that only religion can inform morality, however, that is incorrect. I’m not sure if you’re trying to say that, but your OP might be interpretted that way.
Weighing in for the hard sciences:
Mathematics: 6,000,000,000 - 6,000,000,000 = 0
Chemistry: 6,000,000,000 corpses = stinky
Physics: time + energy to create 6,000,000,000 corpses > time + energy available.
Geology: Lack of human movement on planet causes massive tectonic shift, tidal wave, earthquakes, vulcanism, but lots of oil for future inhabitants, generally agreed to be an evolved super-octopus.
::Slaps hands together::
That oughta about do it.
Is there something in grapefruit that says transubstantiation is hippuric?
Out of curiosity, why?
I’d have to ask- is there any reason we SHOULDN’T?
Likewise, I’d dispute that religion is the force that prevents killing, considering how much killing is sanctioned and encouraged by religion.
Very nice nonsense in response to nonsense. If I ever used a sig I would ask you for this.
Judge Smails: “There’s a lot of, uh, well, badness in the world today. I see it in court everyday. I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it… Felt I owed it to them… The most important decision you can make right now is what do you stand for, Danny… goodness or badness?”
Pravnik I’m not sure what your point is considering that any killing allowed is “Sanctioned” and any not allowed is obviously unsanctioned thus illegal. It is why that I was referencing to. I want to draw a distinction that not everything, in fact most nothing in Society exists for scientific or “logical” reasons.
You may be able to present a vaguely logical argument for not allowing killing, but really it does not exist. Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Japan pre-Unconditional Surrender, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient Germanic Tribes, most Ancient Cultures had a much more broad amount of sanctioned killings.
If I made any erroneous assumption, it is that there are but two things, “religion” and “science.”
But really that’s all there is, while we commonly associate Religion to an actual established church, it is more expansive than just that, usually a religion is synomynous with a culture less so now but still a factor.
Marley23, I hope that helps your first question? The reason I posted this is I wanted to see what people thought.
There are several threads stating some moral establishment (gay marriage, polygamy), and then asking for a scientific or rather, non-religious objection to it. Regardless of the poster’s intent the intent as I see it, is to show that there is no reason not to allow those things, or at least in the case of Gay marriage, with polygamy it could just be that in both cases the poster is curious.
I am curious if there are scientific reasons to illegalize Murder, that is, killing someone on the street because they are Jewish, or they didn’t bow to you, or they were your family’s enemy. I doubt there is any scientific evidence to prevent such.
As so, it is my feeling that in most part, morals of society should not have to be explained by science, or scientific method, or at all. Morals are the morals, they should be respected as they are publically, but not privately.
That is, a person should follow their own morals, speak of them as they will, and if they so choose, seek to shape the laws based on their morals. But they should not deny others the right to establish their morals equally on the grounds of “Science.”
Is there a scientific reason to deny Gays marriage? Probably not, at least not one easily argued.
Is there a reason to deny polygamy other than morals? No.
Is there a reason to deny killing people in a more broad sense than currently allowed today in our society? That’s yet to be determined by this thread, but my opinion is that there is not.
I can not think of a scientific reason nor rational reason why we should not live as the Vikings did, killing whomever stands in our way. While Viking society was a harsh survival of the toughest, it still was a well woven together society that spawned several nations including Russia as we know it today, and produced much culture and art.
Greece was similar but did have more laws. However, it was equally brutal in many respects.
So this is a bit of a “why bother?” post. Why bother asking if there are non-religious reasons not to allow Gay Marriage? Why bother? I say we shouldn’t bother because there are no non-religious reasons to deny people the right to killing someone who slept with your wife, or to killing someone who insulted you.
These are moral establishments by our society that we simply follow because we are raised that way. There is a Viking Edda one of the last to be told before the culture was “Christianized” and I’ve forgotten its name but if I remember it I will tell you.
But what I remember of it, it was a mother singing of her boy becomming a man, he was 12 and killed his first person, another kid who he got in an argument with and he cut him down with a sword.
If we were raised in that type of society, we would not see that as brutal but natural.
So in a sense, I am asking, are morals invalid? Should we base all our laws on “scientific reasoning”???
Let’s put our heads together John, that is, if you can off hand tell me how Viking Society had any unsanctioned killings, please tell me. That is a law, where-by should you violate it you would be punished.
I recognize that in Nordic culture should you wrongfully kill another that other’s kin could challenge you of their own free will to a duel or just out right stab you in the back. But I can’t think of an instance where you would be punished for killing another other than one’s property (slaves, dogs, so forth.) In which case you had to pay them a reprimand.
But I do not want you to just chicken out and say, “See there is an unsanctioned killing.”
That was more of an economic issue, slaves made their owners money or provided a service, any loss of them had to be compensated.
An unsanctioned murder would have to be a Viking killing a man and because of that killing was brought before his king or elders and punished.
I already said I can not think of one instance…but if you can be my guest.
Also to clear up obfuscations, if you think Viking society was not “long lasting” it lasted as far as any archaeologist can tell, from about 2000 BC to 900 AD. With the culture coming to full bloom about 800BC I think it was?
Oh but to clear up religion and morality.
I posted it “Religion//morality” because I don’t connect the two absolutely.
I think all religions have their own set of morals, but I believe everyone even Atheists, have morals, but I do not think Morals are derived from scientific reasoning though they may or may not be derived from praticality.
Is this post clearing up enough of what I’m looking for? I’m looking for justification why I should be criticized for making a legal decision based on morals and not science. That is, I choose to ban certain forms of killing, not because of scientific methods proving a rational reason, but just because it was how I was raised.
I’ll tell you a valid scientific answer: killing cuts off valid genetic lines and prevents future combinations of genes. These future combinations may or may not result in beneficial mutations. When we kill, we have no way of knowing of person A did not have a gene that would have eventually mutated into something useful.
Both Biology and Genetics, and even some Chemistry, if you consider the fact that eventually genes program the hormones/chemicals in our body.
(hijack) This also could be taken as a valid reason to kill **THE JUSTLY ACCUSED AND DNA ** PROOFED people on Death Row. (Don’t want to turn this into a capital punishment issue, please!) This way, what seem to be obviously defective people do not continue their genetic line. (/hijack)
Ignoring the rest of the more ignorant posters, John if you want elsewhere or after we’ve established a general argument here, we could discuss that economics is a reason for not allowing murder. But the issue there is the level of killing permitted today is far less than what economy can tollerate. So why have it at such a restrictive level?
For now I’d rather we just delt with a more general point of simply why should killing be illegal at all? Why not simply leave it, if you kill somoene don’t come complaining to us if their brother tries to kill you.
Going back to economics, it wasn’t an established rule that if you killed someone’s slave they would be compensated, they also could have just killed you.
So that in itself could be against the argument for economics all together, that leagalizing all murders in effect would stop most murders due to the threat of retribution.
But can you provide any evidence of Viking culture having more legal nature than I have presented? I honestly can not think of how so but if you can do tell.
Elenia, I think you made an error in your logic.
You stated that killing is ending valid genetic lines.
But it is through this argument that Nazis justified their killings. Survival of the Strongest, kill the weak and breed the strong to produce the “Master Race”.
Your argument merely provides a platform for or against killing, it does not justify itself. Based on your morals, you will see killing as wrong because of the science you presented, or right because of the science you presented. That is that a person who views killing as immoral, will probably accept your example as a decent proof. Those who see nothing wrong with killing will state that by killing you prevent the genetics of the weaker person (the one killed) from being spead to form offspring.
Simple elegance.
To the heart of the matter in two words.