The Last Presidential Debate

[rootbear75]

added poll to topic.

US Residents only please.

[SeVeR]

[NBVegita]

[SeVeR]

[NBVegita]

I disagree Sever.

 

There are thousands of people who believe that abortion is murder without being at all religious. My father is one of them (which really irks my mom as she is an extreme feminist). Basically your entire argument boils down to either you consider abortion murder or you don't. You don't consider it murder as you have a different opinion as to when a fetus is actually considered life than someone else.

 

I guarantee if you polled every chistian in America the overwhelming majority wouldn't answer the question as to why is murder wrong with "because God said so".

 

You can pretty much ask any Christian about abortion and euphanasia and they will give you the same answer.

 

Being approximately 76% of America falls under a sect of Christianity that statement has to be false. If so abortion would be overwhelmingly illegal. You're acting like this argument is a rubix cube. You either believe that it is killing a life or you believe that the embryo has not become a functioning life so it is not killing a life.

 

their priest gives them a scientific, evolution-based, and logical reason rather than a supernatural one,

 

!@#$%^&* I'm about as unreligious of a person as you can get and no one has ever explained to me that murder is wrong in a scientific or evolution-based manner. I believe most people learn right and wrong from the old "treat others as you would like to be treated" which is guess what? A Christian moral. You also learn that murder makes you a criminal and that society tells you that criminals are bad, thus murder is bad.

 

I'd actually like for you to explain to me scientifically or evolutionally why murder is bad. In fact using evolution you would actually be able to defend the act of murder as it weeds out the weaker of our species and promotes the survival of the strong.

 

And as for your first paragraph:

 

Spoiler! --Click here to view--

Religion:

 

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

[Bak]

I'd actually like for you to explain to me scientifically or evolutionally why murder is bad.

Societies that allowed murder either changed their ways or died off.

 

 

I believe most people learn right and wrong from the old "treat others as you would like to be treated" which is guess what? A Christian moral.

Two points here. First, this doesn't work because I'm applying my values to the way you're being treated. Suicidal people would go on murderous rampages. A better one is treat others the way they want to be treated, and even that has problems (morality is a complicated issue, we can't just list a concise set of rules and turn off our brains). Second point is other "christian morals" include selling everything you own and taking no thought for tomorrow. The bible has a lot of crap in it too, you can't call everything current society accepts a "christian value" and ignore everything else.

[Samapico]

I think this have been said before... But it's funny how any discussion about US politics ends up in a discussion about religion

[rootbear75]

guyz cmon, stay away from religion... this is POLITICS.. i know they both have just about the same amount of bull!@#$%^&*ting, but we are staying to ONE side of the bull!@#$%^&*, not smack dab in the middle

 

as to the poll, i added options for our foreign residents to choose, just because i want to see who they would like to see in the white house, even tho we all know they have no choice

[SeVeR]

There are thousands of people who believe that abortion is murder without being at all religious.

There is often no difference between a religious and a non-religious man in why they believe murder is wrong. A religious man will think murder is wrong because God says so' date=' and a non religious man will think it's wrong often for similar reasons' date=' replacing God with some authority figure. Very few people ask why it's wrong and come up with a logical argument based on more basic principles.[/quote''] The non-religious will often have beliefs that coincide with the religious for the same or similar reasons.

 

Being approximately 76% of America falls under a sect of Christianity that statement has to be false. If so abortion would be overwhelmingly illegal. You're acting like this argument is a rubix cube. You either believe that it is killing a life or you believe that the embryo has not become a functioning life so it is not killing a life.

That's a bad statistic. I thought everyone knew that people declare themselves as Christian while not actually being one. Firstly because they don't know what else to put and don't understand what atheist or agnostic means. Secondly because they believe in God but not the Bible. Thirdly because they feel pressured into saying they are Christian because atheist has negative connotations attributed to it in America. There are countless reasons... the useful statistic would be "Church-going Christians".

 

http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/20...rch-in-decline/

 

Only about 50% of Americans attend Church reguarly enough to call themselves Christian, and i would guess alot of them over-estimated their attendance to appear as morally upstanding good people.

 

I guarantee if you polled every chistian in America the overwhelming majority wouldn't answer the question as to why is murder wrong with "because God said so".

Lol, just try it. Go to a church and try it.

 

!@#$%^&* I'm about as unreligious of a person as you can get

Yet as usual you take the conservative Christian argument and back it up with "debatable" statistics and statements.

 

I'd actually like for you to explain to me scientifically or evolutionally why murder is bad. In fact using evolution you would actually be able to defend the act of murder as it weeds out the weaker of our species and promotes the survival of the strong.

Human's learnt to co-exist in tribes for two reasons. It offered collective security, and it offered the possibility of bringing down larger prey. Thus, murdering your tribesmen is detrimental to survival. The tribe would have to exact a punishment for the murder of an individual, bringing about the law against murder - the first moral for a working society. On a personal, non-societal level, to murder someone brings a threat to your survival from your victim, their family, and all the people who now "fear" you. They may alleviate their fear by murdering you. To answer your point, no matter how weak a tribe member is, the simple fact that he adds to the population of the tribe is use enough when it comes to battling against other tribes. However, there are cases of human sacrifice of women and children (weaker), and cases such as in Sparta where imperfect children were murdered at birth. To go even further, human kindness developed from the survival instinct. When the survival needs of the individual are fulfilled, it may be beneficial to help or save the life of your fellow man in order to create a strong ally. They may return the favour when you are in trouble. I could go on, but it's not worth it if you disagree with anything i've said so far, and i've said plenty.

 

I believe most people learn right and wrong from the old "treat others as you would like to be treated" which is guess what? A Christian moral.

Many of the morals that a 2000 year old society produced and labelled as "divine" would still be relevent today,

Edited October 22, 2008 by SeVeR

[NBVegita]

Sever you act like your argument or loose statistics aren't "debatable" too.

 

First off when I say murder is conducive to evolution all you have to do is look at the animal kingdom. A male will kill a weaker male to exert supremecy. I'm not stating that murder everyone you can, but killing the weak breeds the strong. A weak male in a tribe does not contribute to the tribe, thus weakening it. I agree that if you have a tribe of strong individuals it doesn't not benefit you to murder them.

 

I'll give you your 50%, but I won't concede that the majority of them will simply say "because god said so".

 

Societies that allowed murder either changed their ways or died off.

 

Define murder. In China they kill people for things we wouldn't dream of here.

 

Suicidal people would go on murderous rampages.

 

Not true, a suicidal person has the urge to kill themselves, not to have someone (neccesarily) kill them. Also most suicide results from self-pity, depression or traumatic experiences that are internalized. Most suicidal people are actually quite nice to other people, which reflects how they wish to be treated.

 

Again this is something neither of us can prove either way. I don't think it's right to diminish someone's opinion simply because of the influence religion or inversly the lack their of on their beliefs. You obviously do.

 

Let's agree to disagree and move back to the topic at hand.

 

I will ask in the future, for the sake of fairness on the forum, that you(as in everyone) don't denounce someone's argument simply because of their religious beliefs. You can argue their beliefs, just don't denounce them as uncredible simply because they come from religion. The point of these forums to is debate and spread ideas, we don't want to scare off everyone who thinks differently.

 

Example:

I thought Mccain won (surprised?) Obama couldnt give awnsers about funding his own campaign after signing a deal for it to be federally funded. Nor could he defend himself about his relation to Ayers. I think McCain set the pace of the debate and feel they both equally used the name Joe Plumber WAY too much.

 

Debate the points of his statement, don't simply invalidate his out take on the political debate simply because he's religious. That was the underlying point of the segway in this topic.

[Bak]

l63SRpGXBHEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63SRpGXBHE

 

 

Define murder.

Killing innocent people. For example, going up to my neighbor and shooting him with a gun.

[SeVeR]

First off when I say murder is conducive to evolution all you have to do is look at the animal kingdom. A male will kill a weaker male to exert supremecy. I'm not stating that murder everyone you can' date=' but killing the weak breeds the strong. A weak male in a tribe does not contribute to the tribe, thus weakening it. I agree that if you have a tribe of strong individuals it doesn't not benefit you to murder them.[/quote'] With greater brain capacity and intelligence comes more ingenius ways of guaranteeing the survival of your tribe.

 

In Modern society: All weak people can contribute, as a diverse range of jobs are available that allow the weak-minded or physically weak to strengthen our economy by taking those jobs.

In Ancient society: The needs of society were fewer, weaklings were made into slaves or sacrificed religiously or in battle as fodder.

In the Animal Kingdom; The needs of animals are even fewer, and the weak are simply killed as they cannot contribute to the hunt.

 

In the case of lions the females do the hunting, and are not killing eachother. The males fight to determine the best breeding partner for the females.

 

Killing the weak does breed the strong, but in our current society we are all capable of being strong. What if Stephen Hawking had been killed at birth like they did in ancient Sparta? Sparta wouldn't have had much need for him, but we do. He is strong in our society.

 

Lets not also forget the potential in all weaklings to become strong. If you help someone to become strong then you gain a strong ally.

 

Survival trumps murder in all situations. The survival instinct is the most fundamental attribute of all life, and the intelligence and brain power of the species or society determines the morality.

[NBVegita]

As we can debate these subjects all day, lets move back to topic.

 

Would you like me to split the topic for debate?

[rootbear75]

honestly, i could care less.

im trying to figure out what the topic is on now because i haven't been really paying attention

i enjoy finding topics for you all to debate.

 

eh who cares, go ahead and split em.

[PaRa$iTe]

Hm, I'll actually have to agree with NBV on most of the points here. Mainly because I'm an agnostic. Since it's impossible to find evidence that God doesn't exist, there's no reason to view someone's point as invalid just because they cite the Bible as one source of their point of view; I'd like to see the relation between Bible and society brought up to debate more here, rather than the Bible in and of itself (as that would actually be relevant. WHY would you want a Christian president? I've yet to find a Bible passage saying this would be mandatory).

Also:

their priest gives them a scientific, evolution-based, and logical reason rather than a supernatural one

There is no evolution-based reason for ethics that I can accept without strong further evaluation. Evolution is a scientific theory, which should in no way be confused with or applied as ethic principles. Sure, "Though shalt not kill" might EXIST because of evolution - as in, the people who had this rule would be more succesful - but that does in no way even imply that this would be ethically desirable. Saying that would be like basing ethics on creating as much entropy as possible. I don't know why everyone still cites Darwin in ethical debates.

 

"treat others as you would like to be treated" which is guess what? A Christian moral.

True, but there are other religions with practically equal morals, some older than Christianity. For example, Hinduism: "This is the core of morals: do not do anything towards others which you find repulsive on yourself" (loosely translated from a book; the wording might not be correct, but that is not the relevant point).

 

I'd actually like for you to explain to me scientifically or evolutionally why murder is bad.

Logic was allowed, so I'll give it a try. !@#$%^&*uming person A wants to kill person B, and person B wants to survive. What we see here is a conflict of interests. !@#$%^&*uming there is nothing that differentiates the values of the people, both options are as valid. If person A kills person B, then person B's goal is made impossible; this could only be seen as ethically correct if there was any reason why person A's goal was more valuable, which, so far, hasn't been proved. However, if person B survives, A's option still remains, meaning that the value balance wasn't upset. So logically temporarily extending B's lifeline means that we still haven't made anything wrong, as long as we do not intend to do so forever (that would make A's option impossible). However, this is valid for any point on the timeline, until the point where either one dies, which then determines whoever "won". So A's option will never actually be achieved, ever, even though it is never immoral. This goes for any people A and B, unless people are differently valued. Because if A killed B, A's goal would be selected over B's with no intention of ever letting it be the other way around - which is "unfair" given that there is no reason to let A do this. Ergo, even though murder here is viewed as "right", actually doing it is "wrong" as long as a) the victim doesn't want it and both people are of equal value.

 

Not perfect, I know, but hey, I'm not a philosopher.

[SeVeR]

I am agnostic and agree that there is nothing that can disprove God.

 

There is no evolution-based reason for ethics that I can accept without strong further evaluation. Evolution is a scientific theory, which should in no way be confused with or applied as ethic principles. Sure, "Though shalt not kill" might EXIST because of evolution - as in, the people who had this rule would be more succesful - but that does in no way even imply that this would be ethically desirable. Saying that would be like basing ethics on creating as much entropy as possible. I don't know why everyone still cites Darwin in ethical debates.

It can be nothing other than natural selection, which is the largest chunk of evolutionary theory. The people that killed eachother died out because the people that worked together to bring down larger prey whilst protecting eachother from danger, survived and dominated society. It's simple evolution. We know that tribal co-operation is something humanity developed, and the benefits it serves tells us exactly where the "do not kill" moral came from. So i don't think you're seeing the point.

 

They still killed people from other tribes, in much the same way America has little problem bombing Iraq to kingdom come.

[Solitron]

Oh god, lets not have another republican in office please. This country will implode if we do. Obama. Enough Said.

[Bak]

country won't implode. mccain is one the good ones. stupid republican base makes him look bad.

 

obama is much better though . let's hope he does what he says or a generation of youth will dissociate from the democrats realizing neither party can drive substantial progress.

[PaRa$iTe]

My point about evolution was that natural selection can explain why a moral value exists only from a historical point of view, that is, if it somehow promoted survival of the species. I was using the "do not kill" as an example; killing the members of your own tribe would put you at disadvantage, and because of that, those who have that rule now dominate. However, that fact does in no way help us ETHICALLY analyze murder, unless you assume that natural selection is a goal in and of itself - which is in no way implied by the scientific theory. Hope this helped make my point clearer, I'm aware that I'm bad at explaining.

[SeVeR]

The prime characteristics of all life on Earth are to survive and propagate the species. Through the evolution of man-kind we have found more and more complex ways in which to ensure our survival. Survival is our goal, and thus a moral against murder can be explained with a cause and purpose. It is wrong to murder because it threatens our survival. We have developed complex ways to ignore our basic natural instincts (such as religion), but once you see humanity as just another form of life, albeit the most compliated form, all of our moral code is explainable through those same primal characteristics.

[NBVegita]

Actually murdering people does not hurt your survival. In fact if you have a strong tribe, which is all you need for survival and you murder strong people from other tribes it actually increases the strength and influence of your own tribe. You can try to claim that then you will be hunted by other tribes, but that will happen no matter what (unless you live in a eutopian communist society as someone will always want what you have).

 

You have pointed out that societies that murder don't survive and I disagree. The Church itself has prospered based on murder. Also think of all of the small societies and countries who were destroyed because they either couldn't or didn't murder (war also fits into this category).

 

Ultimately if you killed the weak and unintelligent off and simply had the strong and intelligent mate, you are directly !@#$%^&*isting in evolutionary prosperity, thus making murder actually beneficial to evolution.

[SeVeR]

Actually murdering people does not hurt your survival. In fact if you have a strong tribe' date=' which is all you need for survival and you murder strong people from other tribes it actually increases the strength and influence of your own tribe[/quote'] Which is why people always did find it easier to murder people from other tribes, which proves my point, thankyou.

 

You have pointed out that societies that murder don't survive and I disagree.

I have pointed out that societies that murder within their own society will not survive. You seem to have taken one line from my last post, namely "It is wrong to murder because it threatens our survival", and ignored everything else i've already said.

 

The Church itself has prospered based on murder.

If people accept the divine right of the Church then the Church can murder freely as they have almost no fear of reprisals. Without a threat to survival, murder becomes acceptable as a method of domination.

 

Ultimately if you killed the weak and unintelligent off and simply had the strong and intelligent mate, you are directly !@#$%^&*isting in evolutionary prosperity, thus making murder actually beneficial to evolution.

No, because it is beneficial to make the weak into the strong in order to increase your allies. What you've said would only work if all the strong were somehow allied to eachother, and if the weak had no potential for strength. So no, you're clearly wrong.

Edited October 30, 2008 by SeVeR

[PaRa$iTe]

Noooo, SeVer. You're doing it too =(

The prime characteristics of all life on Earth are to survive and propagate the species.

This is true.

Through the evolution of man-kind we have found more and more complex ways in which to ensure our survival.

True as well.

Survival is our goal

Here is where you go wrong. We don't have a goal. Nature doesn't have a goal. Or if that is the case, then scientists have yet failed to discover it. True, there's natural selection - but it occurs NOT because it's the goal of each species to survive, BUT because those who attempt to survive tend to do so more than those who don't, and thus hang around still while those who preferred to feed themselves voluntarily to predators don't. Sure, we might perceive survival as a goal - but that does in no way imply it is one. Whether survival of a species is a value or not is something which we can decide for ourself; however, science can never help us with this.

(If you intended "goal" to mean "what we aim for", then you are correct. Here I was arguing against the notion that it would be our goal as such - which it is no mora than, say, increased entropy)

[SeVeR]

We may have accidently survived better than other extinct tribes, but it was always our goal in the first place, as it was theirs. We have an innate sense of pain to tell us what to avoid, and what we avoid are threats to our survival. There is no thought process as to why we choose not to die; we are born with this mission. For this mission we develop morality in order to dominate other species and other tribes.

[»1587200]

Ron Paul.