There are stricter degrees of morality that some would describe as "wholesome". But for the average person, just the understanding that we can all suffer at the abuses of someone who is stronger than we are should suffice to come up with a standard of morality that basically says: it's wrong to hurt other people. This is something that a child can understand. But for a morally relative atheists, it's more like rocket science.
The nature of human is good or evil?
- Thread starter Saint
- Start date
Yes right, "atheists". I'm going to explain what happened.
You took a cup of water (OP), morphed it into a chaotic whirlpool together with anomie and nihilism, and now you are implying that atheists, are "morally relative".
:facepalm:
As much as killing in the name of "God", that's 'morally relative' as well. Do you even know the differences between morals, ethics and values? Man...
And avoid this kind of childish insults if you please, cursing someone is 'bad', or maybe it is 'morally relative' also? Take a guess.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
Shouldn't a bad man live hurt. Like a rapist or murderer. They should shovel coal and haul heavy rocks up hills. Would God hurt bad people?
kx000
Valued Senior Member
Shouldn't a bad man live hurt. Like a rapist or murderer. They should shovel coal and haul heavy rocks up hills. Would God hurt bad people? He knows everything after all so he should be doing something about it.
Maybe the fact that he knows about rape and murder loses his godliness.
Mazulu, yes there are moral standards, and most children learn them, understand them and decide whether or not to follow them.
Mazulu, these moral standards you claim to know what they are. You claim to understand them.
But, Mazulu, to you they must be Rocket Science - because you Post ABSOLUTE PROOF on this Forum every single day that you have NO MORAL STANDARDS of any kind.
Mazulu, YOUR FEARS and YOUR WEAKNESSES are of YOUR OWN MAKING - they are the CRUTCHES that YOU have CHOSEN for YOURSELF.
Mazulu, when and if YOU ever get a heading on YOUR OWN moral compass, and when and if YOU ever get the discipline needed to maintain that bearing - YOU may just realize that no one is stronger, unless YOU allow them to be, by choosing to allow YOURSELF to be weak.
I don't think humans begin with a concept of good or evil. I think moral structure and what good and evil means to each person is developed through our environment. Even when we become people with a moral code and perception of good and evil, we still do not exist in a dichotomy. It's too simple. The world cannot be black and white, it's a scale of grey.
Bells
Staff member
And then there are some people for whom the word evil just does not cut it. There are some people, where black and white is just that. Black and white.
I was reading the papers today and my eyes fell upon what can only be described as pure horror. The photo in the papers is that of a smiling man, with his partner and their son, whose face is pixelated out. For all intents and purposes, a happy family. The smiling man, eyes beaming into the camera, whilst holding a baby chick in front of this very young son. His partner also beaming into the camera. Proud parents and father's.
Then came the headline.
Australian pedophile Peter Truong gets 30 jail years in US
Mr Truong is the smiling man in the photo. The 30 years imprisonment and the 40 year sentence his partner received was for purchasing a newborn baby boy for just over $8,000 and sexually molesting that baby, while filming it and taking photos of it, which they then uploaded onto a forum dedicated solely to men who rape young boys. They then traveled the world with "their son" and passed him around to several men who also sexually molested "their son".
30 years and 40 years only.
By the time they were caught in the US, after being outed while in New Zealand, the child was 6 years of age. All his life, his short life, that is all he has ever known. He was bought for sex, sold for sex and there was no one there for that child that whole time. This is all this child has known.
I have seen some pretty bad things in my time and I have seen some horrors perpetrated on children that nearly drove me round the bend. But this story got to me. I don't know if it is the fact that the child is the same age as my son, or whether this beaming "father", grinning into the camera with their son, a son they abused and raped and then passed around to other pedophiles to abuse and rape is what did it. I stared at that picture for so long today, it made my head hurt. I can't remember ever hating anyone as much as I hate these two complete strangers.
The judge who presided over Mr Truong's case looked for a grey scale in sentencing him.
Mr Truong had allegedly been sexually abused as a child and it seems, went on to abuse as an adult. He and his partner both thanked the authorities for having stopped them and for having saved "their son" and supposedly recognised the error of their ways. The grey area should never have existed in this case. There should be no grey area for what they have done.
I am not a supporter of the death penalty. But I think if I was given the choice with those two, I would pull the trigger myself.
Sometimes it is just black and white and the scale of grey just becomes an excuse.
"Is calling someone a sociopath, or saying that the person has Antisocial Personality Disorder, merely a concealed way of calling the person evil?"
Same here but I am curious...
"So, there are at least three contrasting perspectives you could take on the question of whether evil people are mentally ill. Where do you stand?"
Are evil people crazy?
Bells said:
Same here but I am curious...
"So, there are at least three contrasting perspectives you could take on the question of whether evil people are mentally ill. Where do you stand?"
Are evil people crazy?
Yes.
Who did the children of Adam and Eve have sex with?
Atheists are not moral relativists. That's more of a liberal thing, and not universal. I can argue that you are the moral relativist, since you have expressed your view that faith in God, any God is superior to atheism. Every religion defines morality differently. What in the USA would be considered a crime, sex with young girls, is OK in Islam as long as it is sanctified in marriage. I could also point out the OT punishments for trivial things, punishments which in Western law would be called murder. So in your view, I alledge, morality is relative to your holy book, as religions are not universal in their understanding of what is moral.
Bells
Staff member
What a horrible question. There is no right answer.
The primal part of me sometimes thinks it's just an excuse. The mental illness card is just an excuse, one to garner pity instead of revulsion and anger. There are millions of mentally ill people who have no inclination or desire to commit a crime or to harm others. Then there are others like those two men who did what they could to commit acts they knew were illegal and that would harm a child.
Do these two men classify as sociopaths? Going by the list in that article, yes. The show the classic traits. Should it matter in sentencing? No. I don't think it should. There is no treatment for some sociopaths and frankly, even 40 years is not enough. Just because someone is a sociopath does not mean their crimes are excusable because they are sociopaths. Are those two men evil? In a non-religious sense of evil being just the most horrible human being imaginable, yes, they would fall into that category. Are they crazy? Is a sociopath crazy? It is a mental illness.
I don't think all crazy people are evil, but I do think some evil people are crazy.
The nature of humans is compassion and altruism. It is bad ideologies that cause people to be selfish and do bad things.