Hadanelith

Whoever 'AJS' is, we should get him to come here. He's a voice of reason in the midst of obvious insanity.

9/28/2006 1:27:28 PM

Murdock

Ok first of the rape analogy doesn't work because he said \"informed consent\".

Second, we are one to judge others which hurting others bring them joy, which more often the not you find with people who condemn others to eternal pain and suffering for a finite “sin”.

And third, your statement that with out some god in the sky there would be no right and wrong sicken me. If it where not in your belief in him would you go out and kill, would you rape, would you steal? I hate this argument because it states that humans without god would do anything they please. I know I don't believe in your god and would not go out and kill someone for the sake of killing them. I have to question anyone's morals that are based on a book written over 2000 years ago and not of their own conscious.

9/28/2006 2:16:08 PM

David D.G.

\"You assume some things that are contrary to what God has already told us.\"

That's because things in the real world frequently are contrary to the way they are described in the Bible. Sorry, but reality trumps mythology.

\"You also assume we don't know right from wrong. But scripture makes it clear that we do know right from wrong, good from evil (Genesis 3:5 & Genesis 3:22).\"

Look, either we DO know the difference, or we DON'T. Adam and Eve DID NOT know the difference until they ate the fruit, like babies who haven't yet learned right from wrong; so they were punished egregiously for doing something that no sensible person would punish a baby for. And sticking the punishment for this \"crime\" to all their descendants as well is about as unjust as can be imagined -- if any of this were real, that is.

\"Even a little white lie can hurt someone.\"

Possibly, at times. Then again, sometimes the truth can be much more harmful, and with no good consequence of telling it. That's one of the foundations of good social etiquette, among other things.

\"And any sexual sin, such as adultery or homosexuality, does harm too, either to others or the individual.\"

Adultery? Absolutely, cheating DOES harm other people -- no argument there. But consentual homosexuality? Not a bit! There is NO way that can have the faintest negative impact on someone else, and no more on oneself than any heterosexual relationship. If relatives or friends get in a twist about it because of their prejudices, that is THEIR doing, NOT the homosexuals'.

\"Some of the consequences might result in a divorce, STD's, broken relationships, etc. The harm could be long term or short term.\"

And this differs not one whit from conventional monogamous heterosexual relationships. There is no difference. None.

\"But even if the only absolute you personally believe in is full consent, what about those who don't believe in that absolute? What makes you right and them wrong? Why wouldn't rape be okay if it made someone content and happy in this life, and why would it be wrong to harm someone? Who are you to judge someone who finds real joy in harming others?\"

\"What about those who don't believe in that absolute?\" Well, what about them? If you mean sexual predators, they are criminal scum who deserve slow, agonizing death (or at least a lifelong lockup), in my opinion. Why the heck you think there is the faintest correlation between sexual predation and consentual sexual relations, I can't begin to imagine; there is NOTHING in common, and any point you were trying to make here seems to have imploded in on itself. \"Who are you to judge someone who finds real joy in harming others,\" indeed! Some things really are axiomatic; surely you are not arguing FOR sexual predation?!

\"At some point you have to admit there are absolutes greater than man.\"

Sure -- and God, as described in the Bible, fails those standards miserably.

\"There really can't be any right or wrong unless there's a God whom you are ultimately sinning against.\"

That does not follow at all! You just said that these things are absolutes IN THEMSELVES. Going against the violent whims of some capricious sky spirit is hardly the same thing as going against universal standards of good and evil, especially when said sky spirit loftily holds himself above such petty concerns. You pretty much want God to get away with buggering us as much as he likes whether we consent or not, like that hypothetical sexual predator you were describing before. Well, I still say that there ARE moral absolutes that forbid this, and God is one of the worst offenders of them -- or would be, if he were real.


~David D.G.

9/28/2006 2:31:45 PM

Matilde

Well, let´s see it this way. Consenting people mean people who asume the consequences of what they do and they don´t interfere in other people´s life. In rape, there is no such a case. And my, are you advocating relativism TO YOUR CONVENIENCE?

9/28/2006 4:17:19 PM

Brain_In_A_Jar

The world was perfect until man fucked it up. One small problem - how does man, being part of the world and thus also perfect, fuck up? Either way, man was imperfect from the start, assuming any of the rest of this dreck is true.

9/28/2006 5:08:00 PM

Mister Spak

I looks like people here are misunderstanding Jon S.

He is saying, why should we use full consent as a standard as opposed to some other standard? Why not use his religion or the happiness of rapists as the standard?

He is saying there is no possibilty of a moral code existing apart from his One True God. If you're going to have something like a moral code it might as well be the One True Moral Code decreed by the One True God otherwise theres no telling what you will do next. Maybe devise a happy rapist moral code to live by.

This post doesn't seem that fundy to me. Jon S. raises a valid point. Why should we/do we live by one moral code rather than another? Why live by the rules of Jon's One True Religion and not some other One True Religion, or rules that don't include an invisible sky fairy at all? And are we talking about only our own behavior or forcing everyone to obey?

Jon S. doesn't seem mentally equipped to deal with this question, but it's a legitimate question.

9/28/2006 10:16:47 PM

Old Viking

I go along with whatever scripture says. Among other things it says God is a psychopath.

9/28/2006 11:46:55 PM

Julian

At some point you have to admit you're full of shit!

9/29/2006 6:29:40 AM

Redhunter

David D.G., I bow to you. Excellent! This is so full of 'some' and 'if' and 'might' that it becomes a flood of imaginary scenarios.

\"SIN\" is a made up term. Societies have usually had some form of laws against theft, rape, murder and adultery, long before the wholly babble came out.

And of course no fundie can go ten minutes without telling us we're all evil and fall short of god and all of that rot. Providing it were true, no court on earth would convict adam and eve for the 'crime' they commited, the blame falls squarely on the creator who put them in the trees presence and gave them no real instructions or reality check. Maybe it would've been good to know that the serpent isn't to be trusted. He's merely trying to push his religion as an absolute moral code and failing miserably.

9/29/2006 7:00:13 AM

Prager

See David D.G. above.

9/29/2006 10:09:03 AM

WritingIsMyReligion

Because rape is consensual? WTF? That goes against the very definition of rape. Shitty analogy...

9/29/2006 7:58:47 PM

JM

"There really can't be any right or wrong unless there's a God whom you are ultimately sinning against."

WRONG.

6/29/2007 2:38:11 PM

LT. Fred

Mister Spak, you have a point- and I aplaud you for your heroic effort in somehow extricating it from that crap. However, although there needs to be a universal morality, seperate from the law, which is supposed to be a deadline for the truly wrong act with no leeway, it need not be complex or confusing. The golden rule in the Bible (one of the most ignored sections of it) works well- do unto others as they would do unto you. Add to this do what you like, as long as it doesn't prevent someone else doing what they like, and define people lives by how the help and respect other conciouses and hey preso, you have secular morality. There does not need to be a 'Great Eye' in the sky looking at everyone for this to work, or a huge CCTV camera waitingg to zap anyone- that is it.

6/29/2007 6:39:07 PM

Goosey

Well, without 2000 years of Judaeo-Christian rule we certainly would have a different sense of right and wrong, but not necessarily a worse sense.

As I've said before, look at Japan. Until World War II, it was an officially Shintoist nation, and it's culture was informed thereby. As a result, even today, Japanese culture doesn't have the irrational fears, hangups and taboos about sex that we have in the Western world. Because of that, the Japanese can be mature and reasonable about sex (although, sadly, Western culture is pouring into Japan now and harming that somewhat). As a result, the cumulative incidence of AIDS between 1985 and 2001 in Japan was 2068; compare that with 18,256 in the UK, a country with less than half Japan's population, and you can see just how much good your God's rules have done for us.

6/29/2007 7:05:40 PM