Yes, my true colors are that I disapprove of torture under all circumstances. How awful of me. :rolleyes:
Understand this; I don’t believe that there is any sort of “objective morality”. The point I was making is that such an “objective morality” doesn’t even make much sense, because if it contradicted our own morality we’d ignore it. If “objective morality” told you to eat your children, would you ? Morality, by it’s nature involves subjective things like opinions and therefor can’t be objective.
That doesn’t mean that some versions can’t be clearly superior to others, or that differing versions of morality can’t clearly be opposed to each other. And as far as I’m concerned, “It’s best for everyone, even handed, and prevents things from happening that no one wants happening to them” is a better justification for a moral code than some hypothetical “objective morality” that I have no reason to think even makes sense, much less exists.
To a large degree, yes, when those actions involve another being. The fact that they don’t want something is generally what makes it bad in the first place.
No; I was saying that if there was such a thing as objective morality, and it supported torture I’d choose not to be good, because then “good” has shown itself to be immoral. Which is one of the reasons the whole concept of objective morality makes little sense to begin with.
AKA, “the ones who suck up to the believers and pretend respect to superstitious gibberish.” Funny how that “respect” is only one way; it’s just fine if the believers bash atheists.
Perfect, we both agree that there is subjectivity in moral/ethical matters.
How do you know a version is superior? Of course, by your answers I may deduce that simply your own judgement.
Bad = you don’t like it.
totally consistent with your previously stated beliefs, nothing to add.
Belief me, they never suck up, they don’t feel the need for insulting someone who isn’t insulting them. It not fine whoever does it.
Maybe it’s too pompous a title for post 62 where I (try to ) show that non-churchgoers are equally likely to never accept torture as regular churchgoers, which is your position (i.e. never good)
Stop distorting what I say. “Subjective” does not mean “The Will of Der Trihs”. As for hurting people being bad because they don’t like it, of COURSE that’s what makes it bad. What other reason would there be ?
But you have shown that you are either unwilling or unable to understand me, so I’d hold off on that conclusion if I were you. It’s superior, for example, when it works better; when it produces results that satisfy more people and harm fewer people.
Ají is right. All morality is subjective, including religious morality. I liken to a personal aesthetic. People choose religions (or intrerpretations of religions) which suit the moral aesthetic they already have.
I disagree. Morality can be objectively wrong if it’s based on false premises. If your moral code demands you ( for example ) kill left handed people to please an imaginary being, it’s objectively wrong because the basis for your behavior is wrong. Especially when that behavior is normally forbidden by your own moral code.
The morality isn’t wrong for the person following it. They’re actually being faithful to it. If they think morality involves blindly following a religious code, then that’s their morality, regardless of what anyone ELSE thinks about that religious code.
It’s wrong to YOU (and to me), but ultimately it’s all a matter of personal aesthetic. It’s like taste in beer. Someone may like a reprehensible beer – like Coors Lite, for instance – and we might say that they have abominable, primative and unevolved taste in beer, but we can’t really say they’re WRONG to like it. They like what they like. They just like something that’s very out of step with what most decent, civilized people would like.
Ultimately it’s all personal taste, and the thing we “taste” morality with is personal conscience. Because we are evolved as a social animal, we are evolved to have certain traits like empathy, kinship and community. A lot of our “moral” sensibility is genetically hardwired, and, as such, a lot of it is near universal in the human species.
There are pathologies which occur both in individuals and communities, though, and religious fanaticism is one of them. Tribalism is another. As I said, we are evolved as a social species, we survive in groups, not as individuals (just like geese or ants or wolves), and we are hardwires with emotional responses and impulses which facilitate the stability of those groups. This hardwiring tends not to be universalized, though. The fact that we are engineered to survive in our OWN groups means that we are programmed to see other groups as threatening – sometimes VERY threatening. This is tribalism. We have learned to cooperate and assimilate with other tribes to create super tribes, but humans have still not quite made it over that hurdle to a universal incorporation of all humanity as “our” group. I think that some individuals are wired to be more tribalistic than others (and those individuals tend to adhere more to religious identity as wel), but there’s no real way for them to be selected out, so humans are kind of at a standstill right now.
Religious fanaticism is a symptom of the tribalistic wiring, though. Religion doesn’t cause people to demonize the other. People who are wired to demonize the other just tend to be religious.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be objectively wrong; not when the premises they are blindly following are wrong.
But when someone says that cyanide is good for them, they are wrong even if they like the taste. A great deal of morality is structured as “We must do THIS, so that THAT will happen”; that’s an objective claim, not one of taste.
I disagree. People will behave more ruthlessly and xenophobically if religion is brought into a moral question than those same people will if it’s not. It also creates categories for hatred and excuses for ruthless behavior that wouldn’t exist without it.
I don’t buy the idea that religion has no effect on people.
I do attend regular worship services at a ‘church’ service/building, but that is just a small aspect of the work that the Lord does through me and in many ways is no different then when He sends me to work or even to buy groceries.
It is the old covenant, or old agreement that God made with man, it is allowed by God but it is not God’s best will for us. As we hurt someone, we ourselves are also equally hurt (this I believe is the true meaning behind an eye for an eye), as many who do forms of torture are commonly referred to as inhuman monsters.
Jesus taught God’s way, that of loving even your enemies, which involves trusting God, not yourself or man, for compensation, which is very hard for us to do.
As for a later post about heaping burning coals on your enemies head by showing them love and blessing them. This I believe is part of the refining process God has us all going through. When someone is locked into an eye for an eye the hurt they receive from others justifies the hurt they can dish out to others, and by dishing out hate they relieve their pain. If someone shows them love, when they expect hate, it upsets their ability to dish out hate to relieve their pain, and thus increases their pain.
I wouldn’t wonder for a moment. I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that this result is to at least some degree a reflection of tribal feelings.
Mangetout I think there is an underlying point which is IMHO more important. Yes, the anecdotes suggest that the people quoted don’t understand the difference between "suspect"and “terrorist” but in my experience unprincipled people have no difficulty at all understanding that distinction when they have empathy with the accused, but a great deal of difficulty when they don’t.
The Ten Commandments don’t say “thou shalt not torture.” Obviously, God had bigger concerns such as saying his name and keeping the sabbath holy than the more trivial stuff like torture.
And the Pew study doesn’t say that church-goers think torture is a great idea, either. A little more than half say that it is sometimes justified. As opposed to the 42% of those who never go to church who say the same.
Is it really that hard to come up with a scenario for this?
It is 9/10/01. Bush, out of the mass of conflicting and imprecise information, has done what several on the Dope have insisted he should have done - picked out the fact that Moussaoui is part of a plot to attack the US. But we don’t know anything more than that.
Should he be waterboarded to get him to give the details, and thereby save 3,066 lives?
No, no - of course not. Better that thousands should die, than one terrorist should suffer.
If by that you “What would Jesus do if he was the guy who had the power to decide?” and assuming He would let Himself into such a bind he could:
a) Tell you the plan in its entirety (He’s God)
b) He can convince the guy to speak (à la “you don’t need to see our identification”)
c) He knows that real and final good or evil of every action, so he may know that letting the 3000 people die would be better (I haven’t the slightest clue as to how this could be true, I’m just saying “He da man”.
He would never perform or condone torture.
I’m sure I couldn’t do it, but the tempation of beating the guy up and cutting his ball with a blunt pair of scissors would be great.
I’ve often suspected that the more fundamentalist Christians are less concerned with the idea that Jesus died to forgive all of humanity than the idea that because he suffered so grievously, we in turn ought to accept in life a certain level of misery - a level that can conveniently be defined to excuse whatever those in (religious, civil, economic) authority want to foist on us.
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It’s a useful, real-world concept, as well as one that reinforces the good meek qualities: sacrifice, self-denial, not-questioning, and knowing one’s place.
I assume then you’d be fine with the person you love the most being agonized beyond their ability to scream for mercy if a government official thought they knew something.
If you object “but they aren’t a terrorist!” keep in mind many innocent people have been tortured by mistake or malice. So that excise doesn’t fly. Also “but they’re not us!” is racist, and vile. People are people.