I AM

Originally posted by Langtree
Where do the laws for murder originate? The Old Testament established that. In atheism, man is the ultimate rule, but he is not an absolute basis right and wrong. Everything you quoted comes from God, which a true dye in the wool atheist, must not accept, if he is to be consistent.

Are you saying that murder was legal in every civilization that predated the Old Testament?

Originally posted by KellyJay
Okay, when a leopard kills a gazelle is that murder? If while eating
the gazelle the leopard killed, a lion walks up to the leopard and takes
the body of the gazelle away so it can eat it instead, is that stealing?
Kelly

If gazelles had the ability to pass laws, I'm sure they would make it illegal for leopards to kill them.

Originally posted by rwingett
If gazelles had the ability to pass laws, I'm sure they would make it illegal for leopards to kill them.

So it is only in the power to pass laws where this is murder?
I suppose stealing too, when the lion took the body of the gazelle
was not stealing either because there was no law?
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
leopards, gazelles, lions...these creatures do not have the capacity for rational thought. people do. bad examples do not merit attention.

Bad examples why? Because rational thought is required for murder
or stealing, to be murder or stealing, and not simply killing and
taking? What if someone uses their rational to jusify that is okay to
steal or murder does that make it okay? I believe they merit a lot
of attention, if we are all animals of evolution why should they get
a pass on behaviour we do and get punished for?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Bad examples why? Because rational thought is required for murder
or stealing, to be murder or stealing, and not simply killing and
taking? What if someone uses their rational to jusify that is okay to
steal or murder does that make it okay? I believe they merit a lot
of attention, if we are all animals of evolution why should they get
a pass on behaviour we do and get punished for?
Kelly

your example is a bad one because it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. the discussion at hand deals with morality, and more specifically, whether moral code is something that must be handed down to us and scribed in stone or whether it is something that can be discerned and known simply through rational thought (regardless of whether any god exists). rational thought is something that is specific to humans; thus your example that concerns other animals with no capacity for rational thought is irrelevant. i really am not sure what you are trying to demonstrate with the example, and more disconcerting for you, i am already convinced that you will be able to demonstrate nothing with it.

i am not going to entertain your example any further explicitly. however, some of your other related questions are more reasonable:

Because rational thought is required for murder
or stealing, to be murder or stealing, and not simply killing and
taking?

no. because rational thought is necessary to be able to discern that which is moral from that which is immoral.

What if someone uses their rational to jusify that is okay to
steal or murder does that make it okay?

if someone uses his cognitive faculties to arrive at the assertion that it is not immoral to steal and murder, then one would be justified in claiming that this person has a faulty capacity for reasoning along such lines. and no, it does not make stealing and murdering 'okay'. if the same person claimed that snow is neon green, it would also not mean that snow is in fact neon green. all your example shows is that things cannot be made moral or immoral simply through fiat or bold assertions. interestingly, this seems to be exactly what you are claiming if you say that morality is something only handed down on scribed tablets. but god also cannot make something immoral into something moral simply through fiat either.

if someone handed you a stone tablet (from god) which purported to define all things that are moral, would you not immediately peruse the tablet and check to see if the tablet makes any sense whatsoever? what if this tablet from god said that murdering is altogether hunky-dory?

Originally posted by LemonJello
your example is a bad one because it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. the discussion at hand deals with morality, and more specifically, whether moral code is something that must be handed down to us and scribed in stone or whet ...[text shortened]... let from god said that murdering is altogether hunky-dory?

I think you are not giving animals doing right and wrong enough
thought. You seem to really want to bypass the fact that the deed
is the same, yet with us it is wrong with them it is what?

The answer to that question holds a lot of truth that is foundational
in my opinion. What if some space ship started flying over this place
and started watching all life as we do when we study animals in their
natural habitat, they would see animals killing one another, they would
see us killing one another. They would see animals taking things from
one another and us doing the same. If they don’t understand our
means of communication but only see how we act, what is so different
from us and the animals? If they were evolutionist and was looking at
us as simply something that crawled out of the swamp, why wouldn’t
our killing one another not simply be seen as us acting out the way we
simply do according to our nature, as the animals do.


They would see stealing, killing, and if they did understand us when
we communicate with one another; they see us breaking our word,
and again why wouldn’t that simply be us acting out according to our
nature as animals do when they act.

By all means we can address the other points I brought up too, but
this is not something I think should be simply swept under a rug and
forgotten.
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
your example is a bad one because it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. the discussion at hand deals with morality, and more specifically, whether moral code is something that must be handed down to us and scribed in stone or whether it is something that can be discerned and known simply through rational thought (regardless of whether any god exist ...[text shortened]... whatsoever? what if this tablet from god said that murdering is altogether hunky-dory?

Are we at a pass fail list now of things any "moral code" has to have
to justify calling someone rational? Who has this list?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I think you are not giving animals doing right and wrong enough
thought. You seem to really want to bypass the fact that the deed
is the same, yet with us it is wrong with them it is what?

The answer to that question holds a lot of tr ...[text shortened]... I think should be simply swept under a rug and
forgotten.
Kelly

I think you are not giving animals doing right and wrong enough
thought.

i disagree and still think your example is wildly misplaced.

EDIT: i would also point out that you have now gone from animals with no capacity for rational thought to ALIENS who may or may not exist and who may or may not have capacity for rational thought if they do exist.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Are we at a pass fail list now of things any "moral code" has to have
to justify calling someone rational? Who has this list?
Kelly

that's the point -- there is no list. morality is not handed down to us on a scribed tablet from god. morality can be discerned through rational thought by humans so capable. we are also justified in calling some person's 'moral code' irrational. that's why we have asylums and prisons with big steel bars.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]I think you are not giving animals doing right and wrong enough
thought.

i disagree and still think your example is wildly misplaced.

EDIT: i would also point out that you have now gone from animals with no capacity for rational thought to ALIENS who may or may not exist and who may or may not have capacity for rational thought if they do exist.[/b]

I understand that animals have not rational thought, and I do not
even believe there are space aliens either in reality. Those were
not as important as the deeds done with how they are viewed and
why, and how they could be viewed from another perspecitive, a little
thinking outside the box.
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
that's the point -- there is no list. morality is not handed down to us on a scribed tablet from god. morality can be discerned through rational thought by humans so capable. we are also justified in calling some person's 'moral code' irrational. that's why we have asylums and prisons with big steel bars.

If God did give us morality, would there be something different
going on now than what we see today? If so why, if that question
can be entertained, I know some cannot because they view God
is not real, therefore any quesiton with God in it is worthless.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
If God did give us morality, would there be something different
going on now than what we see today? If so why, if that question
can be entertained, I know some cannot because they view God
is not real, therefore any quesiton with God in it is worthless.
Kelly

Isn't the point that atheists are capable of morality?
Surely this is true.
If an atheist's morality is similar to a theist's morality, so what?
Does the theist need to look askance at the atheist's morality, even if it is the same, because it does not come from God? And vice versa ...
What is important here, the morality or the source?

Murder and killing are not the same thing. Murder is just one form of killing.

Discuss...

Originally posted by KellyJay
I think you are not giving animals doing right and wrong enough
thought. You seem to really want to bypass the fact that the deed
is the same, yet with us it is wrong with them it is what?

The answer to that question holds a lot of truth that is foundational
in my opinion. What if some space ship started flying over this place
and started watching al ...[text shortened]... o, but
this is not something I think should be simply swept under a rug and
forgotten.
Kelly

Killing for food is perfectly natural and morally acceptable for both humans and animals. It is no more morally wrong for a lion to kill a gazelle for food than it is for a human to slice up a cow for hamburgers.

Animals live by a simple, crude moral code of survival and power. Humans can and ought to do better.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I understand that animals have not rational thought, and I do not
even believe there are space aliens either in reality. Those were
not as important as the deeds done with how they are viewed and
why, and how they could be viewed from another perspecitive, a little
thinking outside the box.
Kelly

okay, you seem intent on 'thinking outside the box', so i'll begin with a sentence that should probably never be uttered in a debate of this nature, and we should both keep in mind that our construction is more than a little arbitrary:

let's take a closer look at your example about rational aliens and their flying machines. i am not sure why you think that these aliens would see a bunch of chaos and seemingly senseless killing/destruction/whatnot. if the aliens flew over my hometown, depending on the time of day, they would see much order and resistance to entropy: they would see hardworking americans going to and from their jobs, which they keep to provide for their loved ones; they would see people gathered at social settings for some peaceful companionship and fellowship; they would see others at universities and academic settings, bettering themselves in the name of knowledge. the aliens would have to look extremely hard (and would most likely be disappointed at any one time) if they wanted to see a human killing another human in wide open spaces. why is that? because we humans understand that killing is obviously immoral and even though we fancy notions of killing other people from time to time, we desist because of the moral/physical/social implications and because we could not bear the guilt. it is NOT simply because the bible deems it a sin to murder.

why do you think people kill other people in dark alleys with no one around like cowards, whereas the lion doesn't care who sees his takedown?

i agree that the aliens may happen upon some warfare, and such a demonstration might look a bit odd. remember, however, that any right-thinking human knows that the destruction of human life is simply the sad, regrettable incidence of war. war is fought for other motives which are also altogether not rational either, but which nevertheless can only be possessed by rational beings. not all people participate in or condone wars, and the person who delights in war is not a representative citizen.

thus, i am really not sure what you are trying to accomplish with your alien example. i think you are trying to say that the aliens' observing us would be comparable to our observing wildlife with no capacity for rational thought. if so, i can think of several reasons why your example is irrelevant and fails to achieve this objective. ONE, rational beings' observing rational creatures is not comparable to rational beings' observing irrational creatures. TWO, the act of killing for us is an isolated occurrence, and for reasons already discussed, war does not describe our true nature; however, killing and warring of sorts is necessary for survival and is part of the cycle of life for the wild animals you talk about. THREE, killing for these wild animals is predicated simply upon survival and means of existence; war for us is predicated upon (perceived) rational goals that wild animals are not capable of possessing.

i honestly think these examples of yours have gotten us nowhere. back to the topic at hand, if you are going to assert that morality can only be handed to us from god, then at some point you are going to have to defend against the couter-claim that it is absurd to think that those without god, or those who have no knowledge of god, or those who flatly reject god are somehow amoral. and i think such attempts at defense only lead to more absurdities. i am talking now of people, not wildlife or aliens.

i do think this is a very important issue of debate and i am happy that you are willing to debate it, but i think we need to get back on track.