Amen-Moses

She wasn't his neighbour, she was his intended wife. Take another look at your holy book with specific reference to the behaviour of males to their intended wives!

Amen-Moses

jasonpiao

Glory:
In reply to my statement,"you can't just walk into my house and call me guilty of one (crime) I've never heard of" you posted:
Ignorance of whose law? By this logic Muslims could stone my girlfriend for eating pork while wearing a bikini while menstruating. (Humour as a replacement for knowledge of Islamic law )

We are still faced with the problem of judging people by foreign standards. If you ask them, everyone's way is the best way. History is written by the winner, so was the bible.

Glory

I make reference to the law of the land in which you reside. One of the reasons we need federal and civil law is to come to some consensus as a country that overrides personal desire. Otherwise we would have people doing exactly as they please in all circumstances and we would have theists dragging people from their homes and burning them.

As for personal taste, you are correct that there are as many different moralities as there are cultures and individuals. I have only my own morality to guide me and it compells me to stand against the sale and purchase of person. It also compells me to let those who find this practice acceptable know how I feel about it and why. It compells me to offer help to someone I perceive to be a victim as well. If one person says this is our way and another says our way needs to change, who carries more weight? The one being abused and exploited does in my book.

We each have to make decisions about the conduct of others. If you allow someone to do something that you believe is very wrong, killing a child in a restroom for instance, you are complicit in the committing of the crime. If you interfere, you are imposing your morality on someone else. I can live with the latter a hell of lot easier than the former.

Glory

jasonpiao

Glory:

Well, ummm... fair enough. I have to agree with you there, I would rather be judged as imposing my morals upon someone than let someone commit a crime before my eyes. I wonder if a universal set of morals will ever exist.

Glory

I doubt it. If they ever do, I imagine they would have to be quite broad and thus be almost meaningless. Something along the lines of "don't do what you think is wrong." Well duh!

On the other hand, it's such a tempting thought that some of my values are so basic that they must be universal. No universal truths means no universal morals.

Glory

luvluv

DMB:

Obviously, my comments are meant as a rhetorical attack against any form of atheistic morality, not as a representation of my actual beliefs.

My point is that, from the standpoint of atheism, you have NO RIGHT to be upset about this. It is not an occasion such that it INTRINSICALLY WARRANTS your disapproval. From the standpoint of atheism, that you disapprove is an interesting fact about you; it says nothing whatsoever about the nature of the act itself. It is indistinguishable from your disapproval of the designated hitter or of the color green. This is especially true in this case since the act we recognize as rape does not even threaten the man's self interest in his community.

As for the UN Declaration of Human rights, I am as epistemologically justified in not believing in the worth of a human being as you are in not believing in God. That is to say, I will only believe that humans have intrinsic value if you can prove it. However, it is also worth saying that if you are justified in believing that humans have intrnisic value then you would also be justified in believing God exists, because you can't prove either. My point is that all morality on the part of the atheist is an exercise in hypocrisy. You don't have any right to disapprove of any act whatsoever. You might still do so, but you can't justify it anymore than you could justify a belief in God.

Glory:

Again Glory, obviously I am being a bit sarcastic to prove a point. This isn't how I actually feel, but I am trying to show you that if you apply the same epistemology to the value of human beings that you apply to God you could not justify rationally your belief in the value of human beings. So if you claim to make your decisions rationally, you have no right to claim BOTH that God does not exist YET humans have intrinsic value. That's an inconsistent position, all day long.

(I should really learn to spell epistemology if I'm going to go on using it.)

That's an interesting bit of information about you, but why should anyone do it when it is not in their own self-interest? In a society where raping your child wife is an acceptable practice, their is no reaoson whatsoever (from the standpoint of atheism)that a person should not do it if he finds raping that young wife. pleasureable.

Amen-Moses:

Jesus made it clear that everyone in need was our neighbor. The word neighbor applies to everyone who has any need, which is everybody. Furthermore, it was clearly intended by Jesus that the two main laws (Love God will all your heart, mind, and soul, and Love your neighbor as yourself) to be the two laws that simply overrule all other laws. So any minor law which would contradict these two would simply not apply. Part of Jesus mission was to fulfill (complete)the law. The Bible is very clear, from statements by Paul and others, that the Old Testament Law is very flawed and very incomplete and that only those which have the support of the New Testament law of Grace are still applicable. Jesus regularly broke Old Testament Sabbath laws and told other people that they no longer applied. (remember the bit in the New Testament where Paul had the dream about eating unclean things?)

At any rate, a Christian at least has a leg to stand on in this incident, the atheist cannot consistently say that any act is any better or worse than any other act, including child rape.

Pomp

luvluv,

He enjoys having sex with this girl and can get away with it. Unless you can demonstrate that what the girl wants has some transcendent value, he's doing exactly what he should be doing.

I agree completely. And those of us who devalue rape are doing exactly what we should be doing by speaking out against it. And the beat goes on...

Pomp

luvluv,

What justifies you having more distaste with a man raping a girl, who has no objective value, than a man wiping his nose on his sleeve?

I don't think it needs to be justified in any way. The empirical fact is that most of us feel more strongly about rape than we do about nose-wiping.

It's only your Noble Lie that the girl has some sort of transcendant value which makes your reaction more intense in terms of the girl than in terms of the snot on the shirt sleeve.

I don't think that's quite fair. A-M never said (unless I missed it) that the girl had any "transcendental value." He only said that he found rape abhorrent. As I've pointed out repeatedly,

But, according to materialism, the snot on the shirt sleeve and the girl have precisely the same objective value: zero.

Materialism makes no assertions about values or ethics. Materialism is a stance on how the world is, not how the world ought to be. There are materialists who hold some theory of objective value. They're wrong, of course , but they hold those theories.

Pomp

DMB,

luvluv presumably is affecting not to believe in human rights. Is this a result of surrendering one's intellect to theism?

No, it's a result of his being cute and playing devil's advocate.

Pomp

luvluv,

My point is that, from the standpoint of atheism, you have NO RIGHT to be upset about this. It is not an occasion such that it INTRINSICALLY WARRANTS your disapproval.

Here's what I don't understand, luvluv. WHy on earth do you persist in asserting that we, as atheists, have no right to be upset about any given action? Why do you find it impossible that we can simply be upset about things that contradict our values, without needing them to be objectively wrong, or intrinsically warranting disapproval (iI don't even know what that last one means). Do I have the right to be upset if I drop something heavy on my foot? Is that a situation that intrinsically warrants my disapproval? What if my spouse leaves me? What if my favorite team loses the big game? What if my brother dies? Do I have, or even need, the right to be upset in any of these situations?

From the standpoint of atheism, that you disapprove is an interesting fact about you; it says nothing whatsoever about the nature of the act itself.

No, I agree, it doesn't. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the act of rape or, indeed, any act. It's not just an interesting fact about the individual, though. It's also an interesting act about, for example, the genetic inheritence ofthe individual and the cultural mileau in which the individual operates.

It is indistinguishable from your disapproval of the designated hitter or of the color green.

Not quite. It is distinguishable in that most of feel much more strongly about rape than about DH's or colors.

This is especially true in this case since the act we recognize as rape does not even threaten the man's self interest in his community.

I'm not sure why you think that whether or not the act threatens his self-interest is relevant to how we feel about it.

That is to say, I will only believe that humans have intrinsic value if you can prove it.

Good for you! I applaud this wise choice!

My point is that all morality on the part of the atheist is an exercise in hypocrisy. You don't have any right to disapprove of any act whatsoever. You might still do so, but you can't justify it anymore than you could justify a belief in God.

NOw, this is just incorrect. I suppose that you might be correct in the case of someone who insisted on the "intrinsic worth" theory of ethics, but that quite obviously does not apply to all atheists. WHy are you trying, again, to paint all atheists with such a broad brush?