Christianity

[Gary Childress]

Like them, I'm a normal human being, actually, no "better" than anybody else, and plausibly worse in some ways, maybe. But we don't need to judge a person in order to judge a creed. And that's what we're doing: we're talking about Atheism, and what makes sense in harmony with it, and what doesn't. We have no need to criticize particular people, but we certainly can criticize their belief system.

That's fair. After all, the one thing they set out to do, by their own declaration, is to criticize faith. If they can't take it, they probably shouldn't have come out swinging in the first place, right?

OK.

1. The Bible is full of a lot of things that never really happened. Can we agree?

Not really: but I have no reason to doubt your word that your "clergy," whomever they were, may have misrepresented some things. That's possible.

2. Any human being is capable of demonstrating moral awareness regardless of whether they believe there is a God or not. Can we agree?

Awareness? Yes. We all have a conscience -- even those of us who cannot really account for it. But of having a reasonable account of why they should be moral? No.

Oh well. Back to where we were, I guess.

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe you're only considering an archaic concept of programming. Are you unaware that you program yourself all the time?

Well, you need to define what you mean by "programming."

To create and/or follow programs of human behavior and belief,

What's a "program," as you mean it? It's not like a "computer program," clearly. So human beings aren't, in that sense, "programmed."

Therapy is used to help people reprogram themselves.

That's only an analogical use of the word, not a literal one. Psychologists use it to describe a cognitive process of reunderstanding and rethinking, and then reconceptualizing things in a new mode; but not as a literal form of "programming."

Human beings cannot be "programmed." Rather, they make choices or decisions, or they choose to think or not think. They can even surrender their initiative or volition to others, if they choose to. However, even then, they're never truly automatons, and nothing can genuinely "program" free-will beings. They can volitionally refuse to exercise their minds, though.

It bears no resemblance to what a computer does because computers have no self-awareness

So you think self-awareness prevents people from being programmed?

No; I don't think that, in a literal sense, people can be "programmed" at all. They aren't computers.

I'm not suggesting humans are computers.

Well, that's good. But then maybe we shouldn't choose a word that comes from computers to describe them. It might be rather misleading. I think it is.

[Lacewing]

...

You're intent on applying the concept of programming to computers only, although it's a concept that is used in various other fields in regard to people. I already provided links.

Apparently you cannot consider or understand anything beyond the limited definitions you choose...and you always have to claim you are right about those being the only truth despite examples or evidence to the contrary.

Such is the archaic density of your own programming.

[Immanuel Can]

...

You're intent on applying the concept of programming to computers only, although it's a concept that is used in various other fields in regard to people. I already provided links.

Look up the difference between the words "literal" and "metaphorical," and then you'll know why that is the right way to view it.

[henry quirk]

Is this it?

The third option is that there is no God and morality is not just "opinion".

If there is no God, no moral arbiter, then how can morality not be opinion?

In your world, with your "education" apparently it cannot be otherwise. In mine, it's different. But I'm no teacher. Just a (mostly) ordinary person.

You still haven't offered an explanation of how morality can be sumthin' other than opinion without a moral arbiter.

Mebbe a concrete example can help...

Why is slavery wrong? I can tell you exactly why slavery is wrong, all the time, everywhere. I can tell you why it's wrong to slave and wrong to be slaved, all the time, everywhere. I'm thinkin' you agree slavery (slaving and being slaved) is wrong, all the time, everywhere, for everyone. Can you tell me why?

[henry quirk]

You saw it and merely answered that you wouldn't do something immoral.

I've done a damn sight more, Gary. I've nutshelled why.

If I shoot that man's dog for any reason outside of self-defense/defense of another, I've taken and destroyed unjustly that which is not mine. I would be wrong, not as a matter of opinion, but objectively, factually.

EDIT: added a word for clarity.

How it conveniences or inconveniences him is his only measure.[/i]

Have you ever experienced having a conscience, Henry? Do you know what I refer to when I use that word?

I have a conscience, a moral compass, yes. It stands true regardless of what civilizations, cultures, families, etc. have to say.

A person, any person, every person knows his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's. If this is true for him, then it's true for all other persons. This means it's wrong to slave or be slaved, wrong to rape or be raped, wrong to murder or be murdered, wrong to steal or be stolen from, wrong to defraud or be defrauded.

If this sense of being the owner of one's own life were not universal, if only some folks felt this way, I could chalk such a thing up to genes or culture, but it is universal. Even the slaver, the rapist, the murderer, the thief, and the liar recognizes his life, liberty, and property are his and would not willingly submit to slavery, rape, murder, theft, or defrauding. Where these individuals fail, where they act immorally, is in refusing to recognize and respect others' moral claim to their own lives, liberties and properties.

And becuz this sense of being one's own is universal, I surmise it isn't genetic or cultural. And that brings us to my deism (which currently falls outside this thread).

Anyway: as I say, morality is fact or morality is opinion. There's no other choices available.

[Harry Baird]

You've never been on a dairy farm in your whole life.

Most of us have never been in indigenous communities during the Stolen Generations, but we all know it was wrong to take their kids.

Are you saying Indigenous peoples are cows?

No, I'm saying:

We don't have to witness suffering directly to empathise with its victims.

To which you respond:

NO, SOMEONE has to witness suffering for it to be reportable.

Plenty of people have witnessed the suffering. You seem to have ignored the word "directly".

I'm not referring to isolated reportable incidents either; I'm referring to systemic, legalised cruelty.

No Vegan has ever witnessed "suffering", or bothered to understand it.

That's not just an absolutist claim (on which more below); it's just plain wrong. Plenty of vegans have directly witnessed the suffering of farm animals. Some vegans are even ex-farmers who followed their conscience.

Milk is the best superfood can you get

Milk is for babies - of another species.

Nonetheless. It is the most super superfood we can possibly consume.

There are "more super" liquid "superfoods" that actually provide 100% of the nutrition that a human body needs, such as Soylent.

Unlike cow's milk, drinks like that have been formulated for human nutritional needs. Also unlike cow's milk, they don't require the commodification and mistreatment of animals.

providing 100% of all the nutrition a body needs.

That's false and an over-exaggeration, at least according to modern nutrition science.

No it is not.
It contains all essentail nurients.

Cow's milk contains:

• No vitamin C. Deficiency leads to scurvy amongst other health problems. Cows can synthesise vitamin C in their livers. Humans cannot.
• Negligible iron. Deficiency leads to anaemia amongst other health problems. Calves seem to get their iron from grass foraging alongside drinking their mother's milk. Humans can get it from a variety of foods, including plant foods.
• Negligible manganese. Deficiency leads to poor growth and skeletal defects amongst other health problems. As for iron, calves seem to get their manganese from grass foraging alongside drinking their mother's milk. Humans get it from plant foods.
• Inadequate amounts of other nutrients which are at least present in higher quantities (vitamin K, vitamin E, vitamin B3 aka niacin, vitamin B9 aka folate, Omega-6 fats, etc). I won't go into detail on those because I've already made the point.

I'm not denying that cow's milk is very nutritious. I'm just noting the irony of you referring to my writing as "childish" "propaganda" when without concern you throw around - willy-nilly - false, absolutist, exaggerated, and/or unsupported claims (that are also riddled with spelling errors, suggesting that a hasty response is more important to you than a considered, fair, and accurate one).

Going back to this:

Domesticated animals make great shit.

What it's currently greatest at is polluting the planet.

Still 100time better than the chemical industries that Vegans rely on, which pollute our air, water and soil.

There's another unsupported over-exaggeration. Can you back up with sources your claim that non-excremental fertilisers are 100 times, or even just more, polluting than the excrement produced by farmed animals?

In any case, there are methods of farming such as vegan organic agriculture that don't use industrial fertilisers in the first place.

I do not agree with the way many animals are kept.

Good, but the root problem is that they are kept in the first place. Treating non-human living beings as property is no more justified than treating human beings as property.

If you have read the things I have written you will know that natural pasture raised animals are what I advocate for.

I haven't, but in any case, the root problem remains.

Out of interest, how do you propose to get all that good s*** from the pasture to the crops? Do you propose, taking inspiration from Henry, to build giant, industrial Roombas to vacuum it all up?

IN any case factory farmed animals are being used to subsidise the vegan industries; obsession with vegetable production. So look to your own .

Animal excrement is not necessary for plant agriculture, even if it is sometimes used in it, so I'm looking and all I see is a partial problem with a solution.

[Harry Baird]

Go darken someone else's doorstep. Leave mine alone.

I understand that it's difficult to be challenged like that, but there are those whose doors are not just darkened, but bloodied, and it's important to shine a light on the inadequacy of the excuses we give ourselves for our complicity in that.

You can remove yourself from this situation with a simple click. They can't.

I know it's hard, but when the anger and affront have subsided, consider where they are better directed.

[Harry Baird]

I don't have concern for the emotional well-being of most real, legit people

In that case, I'm flattered to have been one of the few to whom you've shown emotional concern out of your otherwise cold, dead, misanthropic heart.

[A shark is] a friggin' machine. It's, as I say, no different, in function, than a Rhoomba. It does what it does as a matter of programming.

Follow your own injunction with respect to that:

Now you need to back that assertion.

[henry quirk]

Now you need to back that assertion.

Okay. The shark is a meat machine. It's indiscriminate in action. Nuthin' it does appears to be a result of consideration. It doesn't seem to choose or be capable of choice. In other words: it exhibits no free will (does not appear to be a free will).

I'm flattered to have been one of the few to whom you've shown emotional concern out of your otherwise cold, dead, misanthropic heart.

You've misinterpreted our circumstance, I'm afraid.

[Lacewing]

Look up the difference between the words "literal" and "metaphorical," and then you'll know why that is the right way to view it.

Like your literal interpretations of a book full of metaphors?

I'm sure you know that words can have many meanings and uses... and language changes and expands over time. But apparently you can only admit to what serves your position or claims (even when they're ridiculously contrived or narrow) -- because if it doesn't make you infallibly 'right' in your own mind, you have no use for it.

[Immanuel Can]

Look up the difference between the words "literal" and "metaphorical," and then you'll know why that is the right way to view it.

I'm sure you know that words can have many meanings and uses... and language changes and expands over time.

That's got nothing to do with it. That's called "etymology." This is called "metaphor." Have a look.

[Gary Childress]

Go darken someone else's doorstep. Leave mine alone.

I understand that it's difficult to be challenged like that, but there are those whose doors are not just darkened, but bloodied, and it's important to shine a light on the inadequacy of the excuses we give ourselves for our complicity in that.

You can remove yourself from this situation with a simple click. They can't.

I know it's hard, but when the anger and affront have subsided, consider where they are better directed.

As I say, life thrives at the expense of life. What is the alternative for us--stand out in the sun and wait until one of our bodies figures out how to photosynthesize for nutrition? What is any life form supposed to do about the way the world is, remove itself from the world as a favor to every other life form? Are we supposed to complain to God (if there is one) that s/he created a shit world in the hopes that God feels guilty for his or her inconsideration toward his or her creations and changes the shit world into a better one?

[Harry Baird]

[Quoted material reinserted]

[A shark is] a friggin' machine. It's, as I say, no different, in function, than a Rhoomba. It does what it does as a matter of programming.

Follow your own injunction with respect to that:

Now you need to back that assertion.

Okay. The shark is a meat machine.

That's reassertion, not backing.

It's indiscriminate in action. Nuthin' it does appears to be a result of consideration. It doesn't seem to choose or be capable of choice. In other words: it exhibits no free will (does not appear to be a free will).

"It appears and seems that way (to me)" doesn't qualify when we know that what appears and seems to you to be the case is not, because non-human living beings behave in ways that only make sense if they are emotionally motivated. You've failed to provide any other way of making sense of it, aside from your sole ridiculous and vague "system reset" explanation of one such behaviour, an "explanation" that you failed to clarify when prompted.

You're either delusional or trolling. Either way, it's time for a system reset.

I'm flattered to have been one of the few to whom you've shown emotional concern out of your otherwise cold, dead, misanthropic heart.

You've misinterpreted our circumstance, I'm afraid.

Nah, our circumstance was perfectly clear when you chose to taunt me for standing up for the natural rights you purport to defend but actually violate, and even before that when you shared a set of derogatory labels for those of us opposed to your misrepresentations (which was clearly an attempt to provoke/troll, and which is why I ignored it).

[Harry Baird]

As I say, life thrives at the expense of life. What is the alternative for us--stand out in the sun and wait until one of our bodies figures out how to photosynthesize for nutrition?

And as I pointed out in response, in and through statements like these (including the rhetorical question) you are engaged in fallacious reasoning (and no, we don't need to photosynthesise to avoid killing, or at least to reduce it to negligible or just minimal levels).

Because I've seen you make these sort of statements multiple times in the same context, I've concluded that they are the way you rationalise your choices. I don't say this to be unpleasant or insulting, but to point it out to you and bring it to your attention, in service to those who suffer the consequences of those choices, in which you are not alone: most people make similar choices and indulge in their own processes of rationalisation.