Torture

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You capture an important and known member of a terrorist cell; you have perhaps 12 to 24 hours to extract relevant information of other terrorist cells before they catch on to the fact that an important figure is missing and they will have to change locations and take other security measures to prevent being caught.

Since that group has actively murdered people and is a persistent threat, it would then be acceptable to employ some means of torture against a known terrorist in order to extract valuable information that will save the lives of innocent civilians at the cost of torturing a known terrorist.

Because, if you do not, and useful information can be extracted potentially, the lives of the dead in the next attack will be on your head, won't it?

And even if he provides bogus information, it isn't that much of a loss: because useful information could have been obtained, it was necessary to give it a shot, and the only thing that is loss is the good conscience of the torturers.

@philokalia said
You should be aware of this sort of criticism, FMF.

On the other thread ~ I have provided a link ~ sonship asked me over and over again if I oppose torture around the world and would I release all people being subjected to torture ~ and he was asking me this because I think his torturer God ideology is morally incoherent. I don't believe supernatural torture exists and yes I do oppose torture [as already discussed]. That's why I started this thread. sonship seems to have bailed out.

@philokalia said
One of the biggest tells on this overall strategy is your total lack of expounding on your own beliefs.

When I tried to talk to you about human rights a while back - for instance - you just kept ignoring the content of my posts, page after page, occasionally describing my views - but without being specific - of being schoolboy trash blah blah blah or repeatedly insisting that I posted stuff that was as "deep" as the stuff you were posting. But I didn't see anything "deep" from you and meanwhile you were blanking out the point-blank answers to your questions I was giving you and simply ignoring my statements of my own beliefs in dozens and dozens of posts.

@fmf said
On the other thread ~ I have provided a link ~ sonship asked me over and over again if I oppose torture around the world and would I release all people being subjected to torture ~ and he was asking me this because I think his torturer God ideology is morally incoherent. I don't believe supernatural torture exists and yes I do oppose torture [as already discussed]. That's why I started this thread. sonship seems to have bailed out.

I think it'd be interesting to keep track of the number of threads in which "torture" is a theme for you, versus the number of threads in which it isn't.

Alright, so your view is something like:

- Hell is torture;
- Hell is eternal
- God sends people to hell
- God is a torturer.

But is this the exact narrative that the Bible asserts?

Is this the narrative that Sonship asserts?

Or is it significantly more complex than that?

What do you think is actually happening here?

@fmf said
When I tried to talk to you about human rights a while back - for instance - you just kept ignoring the content of my posts, page after page, occasionally describing my views - but without being specific - of being schoolboy trash blah blah blah or repeatedly insisting that I posted stuff that was as "deep" as the stuff you were posting. But I didn't see anything "deep" from you ...[text shortened]... I was giving you and simply ignoring my statements of my own beliefs in dozens and dozens of posts.

You weren't acutally going deep, though, and you were not being relevant. You kept trying to bring up the super specific case of Indonesia as opposed to talking about it as a whole, and, as per usual, you were attempting to steer the discussion to the exact point that you wanted it and not toward the open waters where honest discussions take place.

But, sure, we can talk about that again, if you like. And maybe this time you will be more specific in y our assertions, thus allowing us to have a real discussion.

@philokalia said
You'll gladly tell us what you don't believe in, and it fits very nicely into the default liberal, atheist, materialist perspective that is based on fulfilling a lot of the Gutmensch criteria and nothing more.

In a sense, it is its own sort of nihilism because it is not really centered around active belief in anything but a generally prevailing skepticism that c ...[text shortened]... oves the smallest of ethical statements and everything becomes an issue of "consenting adults," etc.

Well, I am not superstitious - I don't believe in supernatural causality - and I am not religious. So I am obviously not able to offer anything other than an atheistic perspective on stories about angels and demons and divine beings and supernatural phenomena and "sin" and people rising from the dead and non-Christians getting tortured by a vengeful "creator being".

So I'm not sure what you want on that front. This is not a Christian website. It's not a Theism website.

Meanwhile, I have spent the last decade contributing prolifically to and starting discussions on morality, politics, sexuality, family, parenthood, meaning of life, nature of love, nature of happiness, mortality, philosophy, history, culture, psychology, anthropology, all in accordance with my beliefs which I personally define as spiritual [as you know] albeit not theistic.

I don't think there's anything nihilistic about my perspectives and stances. I think religionists dismissing those who do not believe in everlasting life as being nihilistic is a kind of lazy deflection-cum-odge.

@philokalia said
You weren't acutally going deep, though, and you were not being relevant. You kept trying to bring up the super specific case of Indonesia as opposed to talking about it as a whole, and, as per usual, you were attempting to steer the discussion to the exact point that you wanted it and not toward the open waters where honest discussions take place.

I disagree. I was happy with what I contributed. I take it this is your excuse for ignoring the content of my posts, page after page, occasionally describing my views with silly little insults?

@philokalia said
But, sure, we can talk about that again, if you like.

Just go back and respond to all the content of posts you ignored it's still there. You deliberately stopped using the 'quote' feature so that you could pretend to be engaging in a discussion while not actually addressing what I was saying and the answers to your questions - a little sidestepping gimmick that I don't use and that you use a lot.

@philokalia said
I think it'd be interesting to keep track of the number of threads in which "torture" is a theme for you, versus the number of threads in which it isn't.

Well, the theme is moral incoherence, in fact. That you haven't twigged that ~ despite "the number of threads" ~ is revealing. Talking to sonship about the "perfect morality" at the very core of his torturer god ideology is like finding Colonel Kurtz encamped in a dark forest.

@philokalia said
In a sense, it is its own sort of nihilism because it is not really centered around active belief in anything but a generally prevailing skepticism that cautiously approves the smallest of ethical statements and everything becomes an issue of "consenting adults," etc.

Well, I am not a Christian, if that's what you are getting at.

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Why do you doubt the veracity of God's Word? The fate of the damned is clearly taught in scripture.

Matthew 25:46
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The distinction between the righteous and the Christ rejecting and their fate is unequivocally and clearly stated in the scriptures.