In the Absence of God; Human rights cannot exist.

[PubliusInfinitum]

Oh and just one more thing sis...

The only thing I am trying even remotely trying to prove in this thread is that "In The Absence of God: Human Rights Cannot Exist."

What I love about this particular piece is that it proves itself IF you can get it in front of someone that will demand that there is no God and that Human Rights are a figment of the human imagination... make believe crapola, the product of social negotiations and pap like that.

So to be honest, the heavy lifting is pretty much over for this job... Now my position is that IF you're right and there is no God, then there are no human rights, the whole civilization thing is a complete ruse and there's no reason why anyone should be concerned with following any freakin rules... death is just a flitter into nothing... and who gives a damn what those you leave behind think of you because they'll be dead in another flitter of an universal moment.

To be honest with you, it's incredible that you aren't out there raping and pillaging, TAKING what you want with NO CONCERN FOR THE CONTRIVED RIGHTS OF OTHERS... Let me ask ya... why aren't ya? I mean whats stopping ya? Some contrived sense of enlightenment? What on earth would lead someone that believes as you've implied that there is no God, no final accounting, no nothing... regrets or otherwise... WHY would you be concerned with the welfare of others? What does that serve you? You'll be dead as a key strike in no time and no one here is going to remember you beyond the wake and the dinner that the church brings the family... LOL Oh wait you won't even get that will ya?

So what's the point of civilization? Feeding the poor? ****, using your line of reasoning I want to know why you're not advocating eating the poor. Screw them... you're not buying any points by pretending to give a damn.

Anything cogent coming to mind?

 

[Vintij]

Oh and just one more thing sis...

The only thing I am trying even remotely trying to prove in this thread is that "In The Absence of God: Human Rights Cannot Exist."

What I love about this particular piece is that it proves itself IF you can get it in front of someone that will demand that there is no God and that Human Rights are a figment of the human imagination... make believe crapola, the product of social negotiations and pap like that.

So to be honest, the heavy lifting is pretty much over for this job... Now my position is that IF you're right and there is no God, then there are no human rights, the whole civilization thing is a complete ruse and there's no reason why anyone should be concerned with following any freakin rules... death is just a flitter into nothing... and who gives a damn what those you leave behind think of you because they'll be dead in another flitter of an universal moment.

To be honest with you, it's incredible that you aren't out there raping and pillaging, TAKING what you want with NO CONCERN FOR THE CONTRIVED RIGHTS OF OTHERS... Let me ask ya... why aren't ya? I mean whats stopping ya? Some contrived sense of enlightenment? What on earth would lead someone that believes as you've implied that there is no God, no final accounting, no nothing... regrets or otherwise... WHY would you be concerned with the welfare of others? What does that serve you? You'll be dead as a key strike in no time and no one here is going to remember you beyond the wake and the dinner that the church brings the family... LOL Oh wait you won't even get that will ya?

So what's the point of civilization? Feeding the poor? ****, using your line of reasoning I want to know why you're not advocating eating the poor. Screw them... you're not buying any points by pretending to give a damn.

Anything cogent coming to mind?

Predictibly, this is the weakest argument for moral judgment by god. What you just said has been said before, and as Christopher Hitchens put it as well as Prof. Dawkins, one does not need a hypthetical bully in the sky to govern moral judgement. Going futher back, it was the rationalist Immanual Kant in the 1700's who used epistemology to put forth that "knowledge itself, is aquired through experience alone"....my point is that the very premise that you put forth, which is that morals and ethics did not exist before the idea of God in general, and can not exist without the idea of God is the very reason heros of mine like Galilao, were put to death for refusing to follow literal interpretations of traditionalists or Religion. As Kant said, it is the "categorical imperative" of Duty, not God that should be the guide to moral judement. I think the way you are raised by your parents and indoctrined into religious society is the reason you cling so tightly to the idea of God equating moral judment. It is my belief, among many other great men of history.....that moral judgement and ethical behavior can exist and does exist even without the belief in god.

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying god does not exist infact god probably does....not a complex intelligent being ofcourse but the simplest of simple ideas and the simplest of simple forces would probably be god. What I really am saying is that you are WRONG to propose that people on this earth can not be moral without the ideas proposed in the dead sea scrolls. You do realize that before the scrolls, before judeo christian doctrination there were ethical people. I know dozens of people who have not had one drop of doctrination in their lives and are far more ethical than the greedy crooks like Ted Haggard and the charlatans like Rev. Robertson.

 

[N4mddissent]

You best get that delusion looked at... it seems to be getting worse as the desperation climbs... ya might mention that.

Again... if they ask what happened, just tell them that you believed that things were happening that you could not provide a scintilla of evidence from the written record to support; which is particularly worrisome in that the whole episode occurred in a forum wherein the entire history rests solely within the written word.

Don't worry, I'll make sure you see it.
We have an exchange for a couple posts aside from the fallacy post. Then I point out how your logic is flawed and you pretend to not see it. It's a shame.

 

[Diuretic]

I'm a bit disappointed that you, Pub, would suggest that without God there are no human rights. Plenty of us are moral people even though we don't believe in a deity.

This puts me in mind of a novel I read recently, the plot was that Yeshua was a real human being not the Messiah and not the Son of God. At the penultimate point in the narrative the central protagonist has the choice of either displaying the proof of this or forever destroying the proof. He chose to destroy the proof, reasoning that to show Yeshua was a mere human (albeit an enlightened human) would be so damaging to humanity that the fiction of Yeshua as the Son of God and the Messiah had to be upheld.

It was just a novel and it made use of the discredited claim by one of the earlier Popes that the invention of Jesus was a good deal for the Catholic Church. But that point, that showing Jesus was really the man Yeshuah and not the Son of God, is telling.

It shouldn't matter Pub. No-one should need to feel a deity is watching them, judging them, ready to boom out, "get those hands above the blankets mister!" at them, for them to understand it's a good thing to live a moral life.
If all that keeps them from living a moral eye is the spy in the sky then they are seriously fucked up.

 

[N4mddissent]

It would boggle your supposively intellectually rationalizing mind.. You still wouldnt get it. Can you imagine nothingness, a great starting point?? take the big bang theory, what jump started it if nothing existed, how can you start something with nothing??? a vast void with no color no atoms and no time continuum???ok lets open this can of worms or this pandora box.....Im ready are you all.....

Virtual particles exist in a vacuum, and form out of nothing. Their existence has be proven in both microscopic lab experiments and they are the source of Hawking radiation which allows us to identify black holes.

 

[LOki]

Is it? Well then... perhaps you'll define the specific fallacy that you're projecting is at the core of the flaw in my argument. I can't help but to notice that you shot right by a beautiful opportunity to do so and I usually find that thoe that know... will tell ya, because it stands as the basis of their position. The rest are just sorta shooting in the dark, their position hinging on a vague 'feeling' with no real basis in actual fact... But we'll see how ya do.

I'll go real S L O W for you, not because you're a retard, but because you're a disingenuos retard, and I will enjoy savoring the moment.

This is your question begging argument:

The universe exists;
Something Created the Universe;
That something is called God;
Therefore God exists.

Lacking crayons to diagram this out for you, I'm hoping you'll not be more confused (than you already are) by my addition of bold face and color to your argument. Do you see there where in the third line you make the term "something" equivalent to God? If you then replace the term "Something" in the second line with the equivalent that you fatuously asserted, you get, AND I QUOTE, "God Created the Universe." Making this replacement makes the third line of your argument entiely superfluous; leaving the resoundingly familiar:

The universe exists;
God created the universe;
therefore God exists.​

As for the specific fallacy in your argument, my position is not "hinging on a vague 'feeling' with no real basis in actual fact," but rather the real an actual understanding of what constitutes a valid logical argument. It's a notion you should attempt to get aquainted with. I'm not surprised that you are unfamiliar with Petitio Principii, also known as Begging the Question, since you failed to recognize that the God of The Gaps fallacy actually exists as a specific flavor of the Argument From Ignorance.

Lest you become confused, let me repeat; the specific fallacy presented in your argument is, Begging The Question. It's called Begging The Question because a Premise of the argument, offered to validate the Conclusion, requires the Conclusion to be true. In your case, "God Created the Universe" requires that "God Exists" in order to be true. It is logtically invalid to presume the conclusion to be valid before the validity of the premises are established.

What you are fatuously demanding, you retard, is that we accept your presumption that God exists, in order for you to (LOL) prove (/LOL) God exists--which is not at all surprising.

It should also be noted that your presumption that the universe was created is also contentious, in that the act of creation asserts the existence of a creator, which also BEGS THE ******* QUESTION.

In the mean time I'd like to clean this up...

I'm sure this will be rich . . .

Now for it to be fallacious, the assumption must YOURS and the assumption needs to be that you are defining God;. . .

No, as you can clearly see, it actually doesn't. Your argument is 100% fallaceuous, based 100% on dumbfuck YOU.

. . . that your definition must be accepted and that my position that the something which created the Universe is God is a non sequitur, . . .

It sure is a non-sequitur, you retard, but I'm not making it.

. . . because it does not follow that just because the Universe was created by something, that, that something was God, as you've defined it.

This would be another argumentative fallacy; strawman. Here you make up this notion that I have offered an erroneous or contentious definition for God, when is it patently clear that I have offered no such definition explicitly or by suggestion, in order for you to attack that erroneous or contentious definition.

Instead of making this shit up, why don't you instead go outside and play hide-and-go-****-yourself?

But here's your problem Einstein;. . .

Holy shit! LOL!

. . . my position is that whatever it was that created the Universe... is GOD. Whatever that was... without regard to what it was... (now follow me here...) '...what ever forces were present in the creation of the universe, those forces are part and parcel of that which is otherwise known as God.'

Oh? This is awesome! Unfortunately for you, dipshit, the terms "God", "universe", and "created" all have pretty well established meanings (which is not to say they are not worth discussing), none of which are "whatever."

I find it funny that you (baselessly) accuse me of asserting a contentious definition for terms, and then you blindly, and stupidly, do so yourself to promote you retarded assertions. Allow me pay tribute to your mendacious methodology by applying it myself:

The universe exists;
Something created the universe;
That something is called Biggie Fries and a Coke;
Thus, Biggie Fries and a Coke Exists.

Since I define Biggie Fries and a Coke as "whatever it was that created the Universe", obviouslly Biggie Fries and a Coke created the Universe.​

This disingenuous and retarded strategy is the Question Begging Fallacy of Equivocation. Way to go, you obtuse sense embargo.

At this point you can call BULLSHIT...

And I shall, justifiably so.

. . . you can flail objections, you can hysterically feign certain knowledge that such was not the case, you can do whatever you like and no matter what you do... you can not change my position that the force which created the Universe is God.

I have no doubt--there is a positive coorellation between the the strenght of one's superstitions, and the strength of one's dumb.

Now from here you're faced with few options... as it is a certainty that the Universe was created. . .

No. It is certain that the universe exists.

. . . and that given that the universe is fairly evident to most folks it seems that 'self evident' applies...

Yes, the existence of the universe is certainly evidence for it's existence.

. . . thus it is reasonable to conclude that since that which created the universe is GOD . . .

Reasonable means there's a reason, moron. Based on your fallaceous argument, it is NOT reasonable to conclude that the universe was created, and there's no reason to conclude the involvement of God.

. . . and the universe is self evident and the effects of the universal forces are commonly experienced, . . .

Yes, we are all in agreement that the palpable evidence of a universe that exists, is evidence of an existing universe.

. . . then we're looking at fairly hard evidence of the forces common to God . . .

No, moron. We're looking at fairly hard evidence of the forces common to Biggie Fries and a Coke.

. . . and that's going ot be REALLY hard on the whole "God doesn't exist' thingy. . .

Not at all, you stupid ****.

So you can disagree... or you can adhere. And there are your two options skippy.

I'll disagree, thanks.

Now take one... and don' feel like ya have to tell me... keep it to yourself if you prefer; because it doesn't matter which way you go... as God exists with or without your adherence; just as anything else that exists, does so irrespective of your BELIEF.

So says your unfounded superstition and your invalid argument.

Now... IF at some point in the near future and you're able to advance positive data which confirms that everything that is assigned to being a function of God can be explained as being the typified by common physical cause and effect... I will tell you, THAT IS GOD!

Yes, I beleive you are firmly secure in your intellectually disingenuous defence of your superstions.

. . .That what you're realizing, observing or otherwise trying to explain is a function of the universe thus is an element of God.

Biggie Fries and a Coke.

Now I realize that the greatest likelihood is that you're simply incapable of grasping my point...

I understand you completely, and you're an idiot.

. . .and that you'll be most unimpressed with my reasoning...

Considering how rife with logical fallacies your reasoning is, you might be consoled by the possibilty I might be impressed by your rational for considering such patently invalid reasoning to be worth considering.

But I want you to consider that space and time are from the perspective of humanity... infinite... endless, carrying on into somethign far beyond what we describe as FOREVER; which is NOTHING, immeasurable, infinitesimal in the scope of time that it will take you to figure this out in the vaccuous ingorance which exists outside of the light; AKA: your world.

I see. You demand that I embrace the same vaccuous ingorance that you have embraced. Sorry about your luck retard, I'm still not impressed.

But hey, I enjoy it and you seem to have absolutely NO self esteem so what's the harm?

I have just a bit more self esteem than you give me credit for--it accounts for me not accepting your logical fallacies as valid argument.

 

[mattskramer]

It would boggle your supposively intellectually rationalizing mind.. You still wouldnt get it. Can you imagine nothingness, a great starting point?? take the big bang theory, what jump started it if nothing existed, how can you start something with nothing??? a vast void with no color no atoms and no time continuum???ok lets open this can of worms or this pandora box.....Im ready are you all.....

It can be approached in a couple of ways. Who or what created God? I don't subscribe to the "Big Bang Theory". I always wondered where the match came from to ignite the big bang. I think that the universe always existed.

 

[mattskramer]

Absolutely... and thank you for the little T/V drill... they're always a good time; but you can't advance a false premise and draw a following truthful conclusion and have a sound argument.

The logical construct can't control the users means to apply sound reasoning...

Okay. So you had a valid argument but not a sound argument.

 

[mattskramer]

Are you sure you want to stick with that? I mean I ran across a lovely little Conk shell in my back yard a couple of days ago... it exists and was unquestionably created

I did not say that nothing was created. The sea and the conch created the conk shell. Yet, I think that the universe has always existed. It was not created by a big bang. It was not created by God.

We're told that we were created in his image, so perhaps it was a preceding God... What's the relevance?

A god may have created a god that created a god that created a current god that supposedly created the universe. My point is that if someone says that everything that exists was created and that god exists, the god must have been created.

Well it may have... but 'always' is a term used by a species which can't really fathom 'aways' and again... what's the relevance?

(See above)

Sure, I'll be happy to do so. But before we begin, just layout the scope of 'prove'... tell me what you mean by 'prove'; explain what you will and will not accept in considering the argument.

Proof for me rests in two areas:

It is that which can be detected with at least one of the five senses (touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste) I’d even allow for machines that can aid people in detecting things that are not easily detected by human senses alone (Ex: things that give off electromagnetic waves that are outside the visible spectrum.)

It is that which can be detected by way of logic (Ex: deductive reasoning).

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Predictibly, this is the weakest argument for moral judgment by god. What you just said has been said before, and as Christopher Hitchens put it as well as Prof. Dawkins, one does not need a hypthetical bully in the sky to govern moral judgement.

Yes... I see what you're saying. I jus adore Chris Hitchens; have you read any of his work which contests the ideological left's opposition to the war on terror and the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq? Taken with his previous pro-left positions, he really is a study of imperatives... I suppose Hitchens is in large measure responsible for any thoughts of mine that lend credene to the idea that there is hope for humanity beyond left-think. I mean Hitchens is presently experiencing an epiphany... He's realizing that the left's opposition to self defense as demonstrated by its opposition to the collective self defense from the morally unjustified attack by radical Islam is a manifestation of a collective form of suicide. ... But I digress; perhaps we can take up what I refer to as the Hitchens enigma at some other time...

So... I gather then, from your knee-jerk reaction expressed in the trotting out of a evidence which consists of absolutely nothing but the opinions of a few individuals which made some incredibly obvious observations, which just happen to coincide with one of a number of popularly held beliefs, to contest what you perceive is merely another of those popularly held beliefs… that you have absolutely NO MEANS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION~

Let me just say on the outset here, that I stipulate that Hitchens, Dawkins, Kant, Hegel and the whole of the Advocacy of Social Science believe that there is no God and that there doesn't have to be one for humanity to follow all of the rules which are otherwise believed to have been established by God... OK? Does everyone see that? Now I post that recognition and ask that everyone overtly recognize it, because I want to dispense with the referencing of the 'thinking' of others that you feel agree or have ageed with you... UNLESS YOU CAN USE THAT RECORDED THOUGHT TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT WILL STAND AS AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION:

Why aren't you out there raping and pillaging, TAKING what you want with NO CONCERN FOR THE CONTRIVED RIGHTS OF OTHERS...

What’s stopping you? Some contrived sense of enlightenment? What on earth would lead someone that believes as you've implied 'that there is no God,' no final accounting, no nothing... regrets or otherwise... WHY would you be concerned with the welfare of others? What does that serve you? You'll be dead as a key strike in no time and no one here is going to remember you beyond the wake and the dinner that the church brings the family... LOL Oh wait you won't even get that will ya?

So what's the point of civilization? Feeding the poor? ****, using your line of reasoning I want to know why you're not advocating eating the poor. Screw them... you're not buying any points by pretending to give a damn.

Hitchens has repeatedly responded to this question: "Well I should think that the answer is self evident; humanity is driven by an instinct to survive, isn't it? One wants to live a full and complete life with their children and loved ones about them and see no harm come to them; so the species has learned how to get along, hasn't it? We've built, over an exhausting history, a culture which provides for our needs; it provides for our security; it organizes farms to grow our food; medical treatment to treat the infirmed and so on... that one should believe that this is all a result of a big bully in the sky is rather preposterous or short sighted I should think; it really seeks... the whole idea is that it tries to find a reason for it all; well the reason is simply that it is what it is and we all want to live and be safe and that's why and that's really all there is to it; our internal instincts developed over thousands of years; we're really nothing more than animals who've learned to adapt; driven in large measure by our brains, hormonal discharges drive us to take action and where that action works and we succeed, we learn and where it doesn't work and the unfortunate bloke is killed or gets sick, we learn to not do that. It's us and not some ghost that promises to gives us a good one or to destroy us if we mess it up."

All great stuff, so pragmatic... and it all makes great sense doesn't it? I mean all of the minutia of the biological and chemical processes are there, the whole juicy rationalization which inevitably comes to the fanciful conclusion that the human existence is not a big magic show at all... no Big Bully in the sky demanding that humanity 'do good or else...’ It's just a complete accident of nature... which we... humanity, have managed to turn into something.

Yet it doesn't answer the question... it gives reason; conjecture, towards settling the question, but it doesn't answer the question. Hitchens and the others want to explain humanity through the happenstance of the processes of the biological process... they merely conclude that humanity is in effect, an accident of physics rather that resulting from divine inspiration. They're satisfied that their knowledge of the universe, outer and inner, explains the why... but it really doesn't.

If life is what the humanist claims, then there is no reason for civilization beyond the sense derived by hormonally driven instincts. Which in and of themselves do not create a right and a wrong... they merely satisfy a need; which would be to say that whatever satisfies the need is right and whatever prevents the need from being satisfied is wrong…

Thus those that rob you of the product of your labor at gun-point are not immoral people, per se... their merely careless, wherein they set their own self interests above the interests of another and that, according to our humanist cousins, is not immoral... it’s just their instinct, their hormonal urges driving them to conclude that their self-interests are superior to the interests of others; others whose hormonal urges drive them to react to the gun wielding citizen out of fear, or a sense of security/survival...

No empirical right and wrong, no morality really… just a big soup of hormones firing trillions of synapses which drive each to take or ‘choose’ any number of predictable variables...

Which of course sets the notion of morality into questions then, doesn't it? As ‘one man’s morality is another's immorality... where everything is relative to each person's perspective. ’ Where inevitably, what is right becomes little more than the whim of the collective majority... and what ARE RIGHTS... well those are set upon that very same whim; and where that whim changes... so changes what is right and thus, what are RIGHTS changes right along with it.

But isn’t it interesting that the humanist is so quick to dismiss any potential for divine influence; belittling the notion that laws which are said to originate with God are fantasies of the weak... crutches... While at the same time, they’re instruments of the powerful used to control the masses... Odd how these fantasies seem to be so universal, isn't it? How they spread across the spectrum of humanity and become such useful tools for the feeble and the fit, the doubter and the doubtless... nothing apparently universal in that… that they can be used for good and evil… that they continue to be recognized and utilized generation after generation, century after century… across thousands of years of human existence… just like the physical forces of nature in every way… the humanist simply can’t get comfortable with ‘em.

It's just as interesting that the Humanist is perfectly prepared to accept the physical forces of nature; forces that lay down rules and bring substantial consequences to those who fail to heed those rules. Rules which are often so UNFAIR... I mean is it fair that a person who for whatever reason decides to violate the laws associated with gravity should perish just because he made one little mistake? Is that a just law? Why should a humanist follow the rules of that law? I mean you’ve heard the exclamation wherein the Humanist rejects God because he’s not fair… His wrath just isnt’ reasonable… so THEY AREN’T SUBMITTING! We never hear one reject the physical laws on the same grounds…

How about that law of inertia? Now THERE’s a real bastard! The whole "AN OBJECT IN MOTION TENDS TO STAY IN MOTION UNTIL EFFECTED BY A COUNTERING FORCE?" Who the hell is INERTIA TO DECIDE THAT MY OBJECT SHOULD REMAIN IN MOTION? Why should I have to get up every time I want to stop my object and apply a countering force? WHO SAYS? And why do they have power over me? I didn’t give them permission to have power over me…

LOL... Humanist simply don't seem to be particularly offended by these unseen forces; these laws which they weren't party to the development thereof... they had no representation there... and this despite these laws violating that most sacred of all humanist sacred cows… FAIRNESS! Those laws do not treat everyone FAIRLY... Oh sure... they treat everyone equally... BUT WHAT GOOD IS EQUALITY IF EACH OUTCOME IS NOT THE SAME FOR EVERYONE? One guy falls due to the force of and thus the law of gravity and because of all of the other physical laws… inertia, momentum and the whole TOTALLY unfair law that requires all matter to only take up its own space… and he lives while the next guy falls from the same place and he dies… No lawsuits there... We never see riotous tantrums protesting the forces of thermodynamics when those laws result in massive shifting of the earth crust, up heaving miles and miles of ocean to the peril of millions and demise of hundreds of thousands... 'shit happens…' or they start getting curious and ask ‘how could God let this happen…’ They’ll deny it, but they ask… But inevitably life goes on, with science working to find an early warning system to help save lives from those laws of nature that do not consult us, laws that we didn’t have any part in determining or authorizing, but that will always be controlling our lives…

It’s wild to me that the humanist accepts these laws and works so damn hard to find ways to violate the forces of nature which establish morality… they’re exactly the same kind of forces, intangible, unseen, unbending and with catastrophic consequences for those found violating them… they’re just as equal and just as fair; yet to them the idea itself is anathema.
They’re perfectly prepared to accept the unseen forces of sub-atomic physics, chemistry and biology where laws that govern the universe produce this and that hormonal instinct, and this and that produces X and Y result… but the idea that there exist a force which established those processes; set them into motion; which plays an active role in; which has a vested interest in… an intelligent force… Nope. Yet… they’re always eager to point out how the laws that they are prepared to accept, inevitably produced intelligence in them… Hell Hitchens would happily pop off 10,000 words to inform you of his awe inspiring intelligence. But that an intelligence might exists in the universe beyond his own… beyond that of humanity? FORGEDABOUDIT!

So, with all of that said… the question still remains: WHY… Life begins at birth, a flurry of biological activity which exists beyond the scope of any moral absolutes of right and wrong and *POP* nothing…

Why all the concern during that flurry of biological activity for the rights of others? Human life, while it seems quite extensive with regard to time, to the human mind but is truly NOTHING in terms of the chronological universe… There is no wake of human existence, according to humanism. The species itself, every man, woman and child will be extinct in no time at all… the earth inevitably consumed by the Star about which it revolves… and absolutely no record of humanity will exist beyond a few pieces of processed scrap falling through the universe until some force contests its descent…

So yeah… I know all about the hormonal instinct… but damn, let’s be honest; that’s not real… They’re just stimulate urges, cravings, desire… It’s just so many chemicals dancing around in your head, causing this or that section or combinations of sections of the brain to react a certain way. Why not just TAKE WHAT YOU WANT and if doing so gets you killed today… so what? What’s the big deal? You’re destined for the same fate in no real discernable time anyway. This life, using your species of reasoning is MEANINGLESS… you’re entire existence is predicated upon the biological squeezing of one or another chemical which works its way into the brain, in either you or someone that effects you… and you react to it. It’s all rather pointless don’t you think?

So why bother? Why not feed the beast? Why not satisfy those instincts and if someone gets in your way SMOKE’EM? And when the cops show up SMOKE THEM!

Why not?

Is it morally wrong? Who says so? And who the hell are they to tell YOU what is and isn’t moral? What makes their opinion special, they’re destined to the same NOTHING you’re heading for… after all… the generic biological processes created us all and we’re all heading straight for the same fate of nothingness… It’s like we are all created equal or something… so who are these people who say it’s immoral to smoke anyone that prevents you from satisfying your needs and what makes THEM SPECIAL and their opinion superior to yours?

Now would anyone care to answer that… and you’re free to consult the thinking of any human being that ever crossed the street… but I am not interested in URLs, or hearing about how powerful the intellect was that created these tomes; just think it through… explain “WHY NOT” in your own words, using your own reasoning and we’ll discuss it down the road.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I'm a bit disappointed that you, Pub, would suggest that without God there are no human rights. Plenty of us are moral people even though we don't believe in a deity.

This puts me in mind of a novel I read recently, the plot was that Yeshua was a real human being not the Messiah and not the Son of God. At the penultimate point in the narrative the central protagonist has the choice of either displaying the proof of this or forever destroying the proof. He chose to destroy the proof, reasoning that to show Yeshua was a mere human (albeit an enlightened human) would be so damaging to humanity that the fiction of Yeshua as the Son of God and the Messiah had to be upheld.

It was just a novel and it made use of the discredited claim by one of the earlier Popes that the invention of Jesus was a good deal for the Catholic Church. But that point, that showing Jesus was really the man Yeshuah and not the Son of God, is telling.

It shouldn't matter Pub. No-one should need to feel a deity is watching them, judging them, ready to boom out, "get those hands above the blankets mister!" at them, for them to understand it's a good thing to live a moral life.
If all that keeps them from living a moral eye is the spy in the sky then they are seriously fucked up.

Hey... Diur I absolutely agree. Of course I'm also of the mind that no one should HAVE to obey the laws established by the force of gravity... or face the certain unbending consequences laid down by that bastard.

I didn't give gravity to have power over me... how is that fair? Man don't get me started... d oyou know much time and energy, not to mention my hard earned money I had to spend to learn how to pilot an aircraft just to get my ass off the ground for a little while? That is BULLSHIT MAN!

How come no one is getting hysterical when the government establishes its adherence to that unseen force that is manipulating humanity and is used by powerful people for evil? I tell ya man... the WHOLE THING STINKS!

Hey... would you do me a favor and answer the question I posed above? I think ya may be able to guide the kids through this one...

 

[Vintij]

Yes... I see what you're saying. I jus adore Chris Hitchens; have you read any of his work which contests the ideological left's opposition to the war on terror and the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq? Taken with his previous pro-left positions, he really is a study of imperatives... I suppose Hitchens is in large measure responsible for any thoughts of mine that lend credene to the idea that there is hope for humanity beyond left-think. I mean Hitchens is presently experiencing an epiphany... He's realizing that the left's opposition to self defense as demonstrated by its opposition to the collective self defense from the morally unjustified attack by radical Islam is a manifestation of a collective form of suicide. ... But I digress; perhaps we can take up what I refer to as the Hitchens enigma at some other time...

So... I gather then, from your knee-jerk reaction expressed in the trotting out of a evidence which consists of absolutely nothing but the opinions of a few individuals which made some incredibly obvious observations, which just happen to coincide with one of a number of popularly held beliefs, to contest what you perceive is merely another of those popularly held beliefs… that you have absolutely NO MEANS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION~

Let me just say on the outset here, that I stipulate that Hitchens, Dawkins, Kant, Hegel and the whole of the Advocacy of Social Science believe that there is no God and that there doesn't have to be one for humanity to follow all of the rules which are otherwise believed to have been established by God... OK? Does everyone see that? Now I post that recognition and ask that everyone overtly recognize it, because I want to dispense with the referencing of the 'thinking' of others that you feel agree or have ageed with you... UNLESS YOU CAN USE THAT RECORDED THOUGHT TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT WILL STAND AS AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION:



Hitchens has repeatedly responded to this question: "Well I should think that the answer is self evident; humanity is driven by an instinct to survive, isn't it? One wants to live a full and complete life with their children and loved ones about them and see no harm come to them; so the species has learned how to get along, hasn't it? We've built, over an exhausting history, a culture which provides for our needs; it provides for our security; it organizes farms to grow our food; medical treatment to treat the infirmed and so on... that one should believe that this is all a result of a big bully in the sky is rather preposterous or short sighted I should think; it really seeks... the whole idea is that it tries to find a reason for it all; well the reason is simply that it is what it is and we all want to live and be safe and that's why and that's really all there is to it; our internal instincts developed over thousands of years; we're really nothing more than animals who've learned to adapt; driven in large measure by our brains, hormonal discharges drive us to take action and where that action works and we succeed, we learn and where it doesn't work and the unfortunate bloke is killed or gets sick, we learn to not do that. It's us and not some ghost that promises to gives us a good one or to destroy us if we mess it up."

All great stuff, so pragmatic... and it all makes great sense doesn't it? I mean all of the minutia of the biological and chemical processes are there, the whole juicy rationalization which inevitably comes to the fanciful conclusion that the human existence is not a big magic show at all... no Big Bully in the sky demanding that humanity 'do good or else...’ It's just a complete accident of nature... which we... humanity, have managed to turn into something.

Yet it doesn't answer the question... it gives reason; conjecture, towards settling the question, but it doesn't answer the question. Hitchens and the others want to explain humanity through the happenstance of the processes of the biological process... they merely conclude that humanity is in effect, an accident of physics rather that resulting from divine inspiration. They're satisfied that their knowledge of the universe, outer and inner, explains the why... but it really doesn't.

If life is what the humanist claims, then there is no reason for civilization beyond the sense derived by hormonally driven instincts. Which in and of themselves do not create a right and a wrong... they merely satisfy a need; which would be to say that whatever satisfies the need is right and whatever prevents the need from being satisfied is wrong…

Thus those that rob you of the product of your labor at gun-point are not immoral people, per se... their merely careless, wherein they set their own self interests above the interests of another and that, according to our humanist cousins, is not immoral... it’s just their instinct, their hormonal urges driving them to conclude that their self-interests are superior to the interests of others; others whose hormonal urges drive them to react to the gun wielding citizen out of fear, or a sense of security/survival...

No empirical right and wrong, no morality really… just a big soup of hormones firing trillions of synapses which drive each to take or ‘choose’ any number of predictable variables...

Which of course sets the notion of morality into questions then, doesn't it? As ‘one man’s morality is another's immorality... where everything is relative to each person's perspective. ’ Where inevitably, what is right becomes little more than the whim of the collective majority... and what ARE RIGHTS... well those are set upon that very same whim; and where that whim changes... so changes what is right and thus, what are RIGHTS changes right along with it.

But isn’t it interesting that the humanist is so quick to dismiss any potential for divine influence; belittling the notion that laws which are said to originate with God are fantasies of the weak... crutches... While at the same time, they’re instruments of the powerful used to control the masses... Odd how these fantasies seem to be so universal, isn't it? How they spread across the spectrum of humanity and become such useful tools for the feeble and the fit, the doubter and the doubtless... nothing apparently universal in that… that they can be used for good and evil… that they continue to be recognized and utilized generation after generation, century after century… across thousands of years of human existence… just like the physical forces of nature in every way… the humanist simply can’t get comfortable with ‘em.

It's just as interesting that the Humanist is perfectly prepared to accept the physical forces of nature; forces that lay down rules and bring substantial consequences to those who fail to heed those rules. Rules which are often so UNFAIR... I mean is it fair that a person who for whatever reason decides to violate the laws associated with gravity should perish just because he made one little mistake? Is that a just law? Why should a humanist follow the rules of that law? I mean you’ve heard the exclamation wherein the Humanist rejects God because he’s not fair… His wrath just isnt’ reasonable… so THEY AREN’T SUBMITTING! We never hear one reject the physical laws on the same grounds…

How about that law of inertia? Now THERE’s a real bastard! The whole "AN OBJECT IN MOTION TENDS TO STAY IN MOTION UNTIL EFFECTED BY A COUNTERING FORCE?" Who the hell is INERTIA TO DECIDE THAT MY OBJECT SHOULD REMAIN IN MOTION? Why should I have to get up every time I want to stop my object and apply a countering force? WHO SAYS? And why do they have power over me? I didn’t give them permission to have power over me…

LOL... Humanist simply don't seem to be particularly offended by these unseen forces; these laws which they weren't party to the development thereof... they had no representation there... and this despite these laws violating that most sacred of all humanist sacred cows… FAIRNESS! Those laws do not treat everyone FAIRLY... Oh sure... they treat everyone equally... BUT WHAT GOOD IS EQUALITY IF EACH OUTCOME IS NOT THE SAME FOR EVERYONE? One guy falls due to the force of and thus the law of gravity and because of all of the other physical laws… inertia, momentum and the whole TOTALLY unfair law that requires all matter to only take up its own space… and he lives while the next guy falls from the same place and he dies… No lawsuits there... We never see riotous tantrums protesting the forces of thermodynamics when those laws result in massive shifting of the earth crust, up heaving miles and miles of ocean to the peril of millions and demise of hundreds of thousands... 'shit happens…' or they start getting curious and ask ‘how could God let this happen…’ They’ll deny it, but they ask… But inevitably life goes on, with science working to find an early warning system to help save lives from those laws of nature that do not consult us, laws that we didn’t have any part in determining our authorizing, but that will always be controlling our lives…

It’s wild to me that the humanist accepts these laws and works so damn hard to find ways to violate the forces of nature which establish morality… they’re exactly the same kind of forces, intangible, unseen, unbending and with catastrophic consequences for those found violating them… they’re just as equal and just as fair; yet to them the idea itself is anathema.
They’re perfectly prepared to accept the unseen forces of sub-atomic physics, chemistry and biology where laws that govern the universe produce this and that hormonal instinct, and this and that result produces X and Y result… but the idea that there exist a force which established those processes; set them into motion; which plays an active role in; which has a vested interest in… an intelligent force… Nope. Yet… they’re always eager to point out how the laws that they are prepared to accept, inevitably produced intelligence in them… Hell Hitchens would happily pop off 10,000 words to inform you of his awe inspiring intelligence. But that an intelligence might exists in the universe beyond his own… beyond that of humanity? FORGEDABOUDIT!

So, with all of that said… the question still remains: WHY… Life begins at birth, a flurry of biological activity which exists beyond the scope of any moral absolutes of right and wrong and *POP* nothing…

Why all the concern during that flurry of biological activity for the rights of others? Human life, while it seems quite extensive with regard to time, to the human mind but is truly NOTHING in terms of the chronological universe… There is no wake of human existence, according to humanism. The species itself, every man, woman and child will be extinct in no time at all… the earth inevitably consumed by the Star about which it revolves… and absolutely no record of humanity will exist beyond a few pieces of processed scrap falling through the universe until some force contests its descent…

So yeah… I know all about the hormonal instinct… but damn, let’s be honest; that’s not real… They’re just stimulate urges, cravings, desire… It’s just so many chemicals dancing around in your head, causing this or that section of combinations of sections of the brain to react a certain way. Why not just TAKE WHAT YOU WANT and if doing so gets you killed today… so what? What’s the big deal? You’re destined for the same fate in no real discernable time anyway. This life, using your species of reasoning is MEANINGLESS… you’re entire existence is predicated upon the biological squeezing of one or another chemical which works its way into the brain, in either you or someone that effects you… and you react to it. It’s all rather pointless don’t you think?

So why bother? Why not feed the beast? Why not satisfy those instincts and if someone gets in your way SMOKE’EM? And when the cops show up SMOKE THEM!

Why not?

Is it morally wrong? Who says so? And who the hell are they to tell YOU what is and isn’t moral? What makes their opinion special, they’re destined to the same NOTHING you’re heading for… after all… the generic biological processes created us all and we’re all heading straight for the same fate of nothingness… It’s like we are all created equal or something… so who are these people who say it’s immoral to smoke anyone that prevents you from satisfying your needs and what makes THEM SPECIAL and their opinion superior to yours?

Now would anyone care to answer that… and you’re free to consult the thinking of any human being that ever crossed the street… but I am not interested in URLs, or hearing about how powerful the intellect was that created these tomes; just think it through… explain “WHY NOT” in your own words, using your own reasoning and we’ll discuss it down the road.

Your right about science explaining the biological destiny and history of life as being one constant evolution of organisms. The difference that Immanual Kant and even ancient greek philosophers like Plato and Socratese put forward is that with the evolution of the human brain, or intelligence we can use the understanding of reality and technology to govern our biological future. With the introduction of technology, darwins natural selection has become technological driven and has given rise to artificial selection and I bring this up because part of your argument was the idea that nobody really has to be moral, everyone can kill everyone if they so choose. What I am saying is the with quality of life improving every generation thanks to the industrial revolution, the need for immoral behavior has become less and less relavent.

Nobody can predict who will be moral and who will not, that is a cognitive trait of phycological foundations, but when you try to explain biological evolution as some type of dominoe effect of millions of species being immoral and killing eachother makes no sense. Biological evolution explains how we were able to survive by killing game and havesting an agricultural system which we still do today. It does not explain anything about why people kill other people.

As far as Hitchens is concerned, I have read many of his ideas on the Afgan war and the Iraq invasion and why we went in. It is an interesting point and in my opinion he provides the best argument for the invasion, even though I was against it. The problem is he does not cling to this make believe idea that Suddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we must have moved in to stop him.....he states that there were very dangerous people talking with suddam before the invasion and that it was essential to end these conversations before they went further.

He also states that Prime minister Maliki is a crook who is not to be trusted. He stated that saddam should not have been executed so quickly without a fair trial which proves the corruption of Maliki who we appointed in the first place.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I did not say that nothing was created. The sea and the conch created the conk shell. Yet, I think that the universe has always existed. It was not created by a big bang. It was not created by God.

Oh its pretty much a certainty that there was a big bang... the math proves that the perceptible matter in the Universe is all fairly well organized in it's movements and all signs lead back to one point... which is where the math usually fell apart priot to the ressurection of M-Theory, which in effect sees that bang having been a collision of 'dimensions'... or 'dimensional membranes'... and by collision I mean that the BB is simply where the two physically touched... creating what amounts to our dimension.

None of which precludes the existance of a God force... and in my mind actually takes step towards proving such... but the point is that the BB is all but a certainty...

A god may have created a god that created a god that created a current god that supposedly created the universe. My point is that if someone says that everything that exists was created and that god exists, the god must have been created.

Could be... and that begs the question: So what? How does that effect you? Does the God Force get less appealing to you, thus dulling your willingness to comply to its unbending authority, because it could possibly be a result of progenics? Would you be less inclined to obey any other force of nature if you felt that it was not an unblemished original?

(See above)

See above...



Proof for me rests in two areas:

It is that which can be detected with at least one of the five senses (touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste) I’d even allow for machines that can aid people in detecting things that are not easily detected by human senses alone (Ex: things that give off electromagnetic waves that are outside the visible spectrum.)

It is that which can be detected by way of logic (Ex: deductive reasoning).[/QUOTE]


Oh OK... That's great.

Does the universe exist?

Is their intelligence within that universe?

Is there a possibility that the discernable physical elements of the universe are responding to forces that we cannot see with our senses and at this point are not detectable through technological means?

If Not.. please state your evidence and basis in reasoning.

If so... then why are you busting my balls? If the human species has the the technological means to determine what is and what isn't then FINE... I 'll accept what that technology tells us. If we know that we are NOT technologically able to know the full scope of the universe, with regard to the sum of forces that comprise the universal cause and effects, then the entire discussion is a weaste of time, beyond the certainty that there are forces which we do not presently fully understand, but our ignorance of their scope does not provide us immunity from their laws.

For the purposes of this discussion we're considering the premise: In the Absence of God: Human Rights cannot exist.

Now that hinges on God being an intelligent force which created the Universe and its infinite universal laws... which naturally include the physcial laws of nature; those to which we're privy and those to which we are not... as well as laws regarding reason, which will inevitably determine morality, and it is my contention that it that species of natural law on which human rights rest. Divine in origin, unbending, incontestable and inescapable; and that where the concept of human rights is trotted out in the absence of that universal law... that such is a violation of the universal 'laws of reason' and they will suffer the consequences in much the same way as the violator of the laws advanced through the natural force of gravity.

It's not complicated... Either God exists and human beings are accoutable to that God Force and the Human rights enjoyed by Humanity rest upon the authority represented by that God force OR THEY DO NOT and as a result Human Rights are nothing more than the temporal privileges extended by popular whimsy... which are subject to change without notice and exist at BEST on the happenstance of a fleeting benevolence.

Which in my opinion reduces the concept of Human Rights to that of meaningless...

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Your right about science explaining the biological destiny and history of life as being one constant evolution of organisms. The difference that Immanual Kant and even ancient greek philosophers like Plato and Socratese put forward is that with the evolution of the human brain, or intelligence we can use the understanding of reality and technology to govern our biological future. With the introduction of technology, darwins natural selection has become technological driven and has given rise to artificial selection and I bring this up because part of your argument was the idea that nobody really has to be moral, everyone can kill everyone if they so choose. What I am saying is the with quality of life improving every generation thanks to the industrial revolution, the need for immoral behavior has become less and less relavent.

Nobody can predict who will be moral and who will not, that is a cognitive trait of phycological foundations, but when you try to explain biological evolution as some type of dominoe effect of millions of species being immoral and killing eachother makes no sense. Biological evolution explains how we were able to survive by killing game and havesting an agricultural system which we still do today. It does not explain anything about why people kill other people.

SO you either can't or refuse to answer the question... We all recognize the processes on which humanity physically rests. I overtly stipulated to that...

What I want you to do is to answer the question.

As to your position regarding Hitchens and his bludgeoning of the ideological left for their absurd defense of mass murdering Muslims... I've opened the following thread for that discussion. Please feel free to join that discussion.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/war-o...hens-and-his-arguments-regrding-the-gwot.html

 

[Vintij]

SO you either can't or refuse to answer the question... We all recognize the processes on which humanity physically rests. I overtly stipulated to that...

What I want you to do is to answer the question.

As to your position regarding Hitchens and his bludgeoning of the ideological left for their absurd defense of mass murdering Muslims... I've opened the following thread for that discussion. Please feel free to join that discussion.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/war-o...hens-and-his-arguments-regrding-the-gwot.html

I have answered your question, several times. The question is an elementary one, "why are you not raping and pillaging and killing?"

Simple, its not becuase of god at all its because of the categorical imperative that I described yesterday. Did you not read it? The imperative that we are bound by duty and that morality is based on what is intrinsically good, not on what a book tells you is good. Intrisically good, meaning things that are good in and of themselves as it relates to the majority as a whole, not to the individual. And those things that are intrinsically good have existed far before organized religion. The idea of kinship, the idea of protecting your loved ones, the idea of equality....these are all ancient ideas that existed far before the constitution, far before christianity and far before even the belief in god.

So let me answer your question again, no I dont rape and pillage because a book told me not too, infact the bible is no moral compass at all....in reality the old testamen does approve of stoning women, cutting off others penis's and burning towns to the ground. If THAT is your moral compass, well we should all be worried about YOU raping and pilaging our towns. Not the non-believers.

And for the record, Hitchens endorses barrack Obama....who was as you remember, against the invasion and even voted against it. So even Christopher knows that the future of US policy should not always be in the hands of a war president.

 

[N4mddissent]

You know, really the entire topic of this thread is an appeal to consequences. For example, if an atheist agrees with you and says there are no objective human rights. What then? Nothing has been proven. Even if the consequences are troubling, it does not validate the idea that there is a god.

I personally have reached certain conclusions for myself about rights and responsibilities from a rational basis which I'd be more than happy to share, but in the meantime I'd like to know what exactly you would want to accomplish with this thread. Let's take your version of the atheist and go from there. Ok, so you've shown that this particular atheist, call him S-man, believes all human rights are subject to the collective whim. He or she agrees that the concept of "human rights" as universal is meaningless. Where do you go from there?

 

[mattskramer]

Oh its pretty much a certainty that there was a big bang... the math proves that the perceptible matter in the Universe is all fairly well organized in it's movements and all signs lead back to one point... which is where the math usually fell apart priot to the ressurection of M-Theory, which in effect sees that bang having been a collision of 'dimensions'... or 'dimensional membranes'... and by collision I mean that the BB is simply where the two physically touched... creating what amounts to our dimension.

Wow. You are pretty knowledgeable about that stuff. I guess that I give up in that area. Please help me by giving me your perspective on a topic/issue that has been on my mind for a long time. You might call it a more “down-to-earth and human issue”. Why do bad things happen to good people – and don’t give me that “free will and choice” excuse. Some people are so young that they don’t have free will and sometimes the suffering that people endure is not even the fault of the parents.

I have a series of “yes-no” questions for you and a follow up question demanding an explanation. This has puzzled me for a long time and no one has given me a satisfactory explanation – at least an explanation that satisfied me. It is a key thing that drove me away from God – at least the benevolent, fair, all knowing, and all powerful god that most Christians consider. Please don’t give me a complicated convoluted complex high-brow explanation filled with apologist jargon.

1. Is god all-knowing? Yes?
2. Is god all-powerful? Yes?
3. Is god all-good? Yes?
4. Does god hold each one responsible for choices that he makes? Yes?

Then how the h@II do you explain this?!?!!?

Wanting a Meal

Look at the child practically preparing to be food for the vulture. Did the child, with free will and such, make a decision that resulted in this?

In my opinion, if there is a god, he she it or they either don’t know everything that is going on, can’t do anything about what goes on everywhere, does not care what is going on, or is random in the way that he imposes punishment. Explain.

 

[LOki]

1. Is god all-knowing? Yes?
2. Is god all-powerful? Yes?
3. Is god all-good? Yes?
4. Does god hold each one responsible for choices that he makes? Yes?

Then how the h@II do you explain this?!?!!?


Explain.

Easy. This God is make-believe. Make-believe things can be and do "whatever" you imagine them to do.

 

[N4mddissent]

The formal name for this is the question of evil or the problem of evil. Do a google search and you will find lots of debate. Even the best philosophical and theological answers to this are very weak. It is the most severe challenge to the traditional view of god- Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I have answered your question, several times. The question is an elementary one, "why are you not raping and pillaging and killing?"

Simple, its not becuase of god at all its because of the categorical imperative that I described yesterday. Did you not read it? The imperative that we are bound by duty and that morality is based on what is intrinsically good, not on what a book tells you is good.

Yeah I read it... I just can't believe that your answer is this human contrivance of 'good'...