B
buffalo
Guest
Right - purely for self interest. Is that moral?You asked what will prevent one from eating the other
I just said, people have eaten each other to survive!
Sarah x
- Status
B
buffalo
Guest
Just wanted to know what you were using as your source.I’m sure you’re perfectable capable of looking up the Hammurabi Code
Sarah x
HC - 1700 BC or so.
It is beleived Moses’ compilations came from source material - Archaeologists found old clay tablets with colophon phrases dated before Abraham.
T
ThinkingSapien
Guest
According to those that lived to talk about it they were eating the people that either died in or after the crash. While I find the idea of eating people incredibly disgusting I personally could not write words of condemnation for their actions given the conditions. I’m also not familiar with any rules under any moral systems that command that one should not eat a fallen comrad so that his/her own life cannot be continued especially when the only source of food left is the fallen.
It’s a complex issue especially when you start to consider other factors such as do the survivers have others that depend on them back home or are there other factors that make the person feel obligated to live.
B
buffalo
Guest
The scenario I would like addressed is two people on an island with few resources with erased memories.
C
CHRISTINE77
Guest
I agree with you, and I would like to know if these people believed in God (I think yes in the case of the Donner party) and if so, I am sure they would be forgiven by God and be able make peace with themselves for having to resort to canibalism.
T
ThinkingSapien
Guest
Given that one’s perception of “good”, “bad”, and “moral” are going to be shaped by experiences and expectations (both of which are entangled with memory) I couldn’t answer this scenario with a yes or no. I can’t think of any way this hypothetical could be done while leaving one’s memories in one piece. From where I stand it’s like asking “If we severly damaged the prefrontal cortext of two people and then put these brain damaged mentally challenged individuals on an island would they behave morally or immorally?”
If I modified the experiement so that the person’s abilities to recall episodic memories prior to a certain date coherently that still leaves some traces of other forms of memory that will influence their behaviour.
Let’s forget about loosing memory for a second.
Self interest doesn’t dictate that the two people would compete. Considerations of self interest could also bring about the conclusion that the two people work together especially if they have differing skills that can both contribute to their survival. Even if they have the same skills some tasks such as building a shelter could be more easily done with two people working together instead of one person working alone (ex: any given person will have a limited lifting capacity).
B
buffalo
Guest
The scenario is meant to “clean the slate” so to speak. I posted that “atheists were not born in a vacuum”. In the Western world they are positively influenced by Judeo Christian morality. A case of usurping the good and throwing out the disagreeable. Actually , who can argue with the 7 commandments? (Atheists mostly argue against the first three) Not many for they are truly good.
The point I am getting to is that we are all shaped by our experiences and learning.
Self interest most often does not lead to altruism. Rather it is egoism and one is not morally obligated to another.
A
atheistgirl
Guest
The Catholic auxillary Bishop of Montevideo at the time said it was perfectly moral in the circumstances.
Sarah x
A
atheistgirl
Guest
Right. God wrote the commands on stone, if I understand correctly.
Stones long since ‘‘lost’’ and commands that co-incidently marry up nicely with those of earlier generations. Except the One God bits.
Sarah x
B
buffalo
Guest
It can be moral if the person died of natural causes and under certain circumstances. That is not the scenario. The scenario (I should have been clearer) is - what prevents one from killing the other for any reason?The Catholic auxillary Bishop of Montevideo at the time said it was perfectly moral in the circumstances.
Sarah x
This would have been more clear.
We could try an experiment. Erase the minds of two people and put them on an island without resources. What will prevent one from murdering the other?
A
atheistgirl
Guest
Nothing.
And Everything.
Depending on the two people concerned.
You can’t possibly argue that having a belief in God would stop someone from murdering someone else, because just look at the prison population of murders and then cross match with religion.
Sarah x
B
buffalo
Guest
Archaeologists are continually making findings that support Scripture accounts.Right. God wrote the commands on stone, if I understand correctly.
Stones long since ‘‘lost’’ and commands that co-incidently marry up nicely with those of earlier generations. Except the One God bits.
Sarah x
Is you claim that the Ten Commandments were the first time God instructed His people? For example, some of God’s first instructions: Marriage, obedience, the trees of life and knowledge and do not murder
Do you need to have the original manuscript of a book you read? Do you disregard a 20th printing if the original was lost in a fire?
B
buffalo
Guest
Yes, I can and do. A failure to follow the Catholic proposition does not invalidate the proposition.Nothing.
And Everything.
Depending on the two people concerned.
You can’t possibly argue that having a belief in God would stop someone from murdering someone else, because just look at the prison population of murders and then cross match with religion.
Sarah x
S
Steven_rip
Guest
Absolutely no, I think about God all the time, 24/7 24 hours a day. If I didn’t think like that, I would go nuts.
H
Holly3278
Guest
No, I don’t think life would be worth living. There would be no purpose to life and there would be no hope of anything happening after you die. Once your relatives die you would never see them again. There would also be the fact that once evil people like Hitler die, there is no further justice served.
With God, it is just the opposite though. With God there is plenty of purpose in life and we know that the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded. We know that we might have a chance of seeing our relatives again if they went to Heaven. And also the afterlife thing means that there is further justice for those who were evil while on earth.
With God, it is just the opposite though. With God there is plenty of purpose in life and we know that the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded. We know that we might have a chance of seeing our relatives again if they went to Heaven. And also the afterlife thing means that there is further justice for those who were evil while on earth.
T
ThinkingSapien
Guest
True, though that can be said of about any human. Beyond the fact that we start off inside another human we are usually dependent on another human after birth for some time for our lives to be sustained. Hmmm…I might be able to expand that from “any human” to “any social animal (metazoan).”
Arguments against enforcement of the first 4 have been raised because of because of the establishment cause. Those that raise complainst against it are not necessarily atheists (some have been Christians, some of other religions). I’m not quite sure what the tenth commandment means. I’ve asked around but haven’t gotten a consistent answer. But for the most part I find the other 5 to be generally agreable.
Indeed we are!
A
atheistgirl
Guest
Not according to many articles I’ve read.
I
I don’t know? Was that the first time God instructed his people? I thought the commandments were God’s first instruction, written in stone, but I’m prepared to be corrected if they’re not.
Are there earlier references to God instructing his people not contained in the Bible, because I thought the Biblical account was the first, and in that case, we know we have much earlier codes concerning murder, theft, false witness, divorce, property etc that came from kings and rulers, not from God. That’s why I mentioned the co-incidence of the commands matching up nicely with what we already knew - before God got involved!
Sarah x
A
atheistgirl
Guest
You are honestly saying that some one believing in God would stop them from murdering some one?
Sarah x
C
CHRISTINE77
Guest
Nice. I agree. And with God one is never alone. We always know he is guiding us, and when bad things happen, we know he will help us find our way. We know our lives are not meaningless and that God is with us every step of the way.
A
ASimon
Guest
Don’t be so surprised - this is a very common (if altogether stunning) admission by Believers. One of the regulars here admitted to me that the only thing stopping him from molesting children, in a Godless Universe, would be the legal consequences.You are honestly saying that some one believing in God would stop them from murdering some one?
Sarah x
- Status