Charming. Good Christian Vox Day argues that murdering toddlers in the name of Jesus is defensible.
(I’m hoping ol’ Vox will make another post calling me “Pharyngurl”. It’s pathetic that he thinks femininity is an insult, isn’t it?)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Not really outside the mainstream, IMO. Probably the larger percentage of Christians would agree that morality is what God says it is. This guy’s statements are in line with numerous old testament stories.
It’s really amazing. And pathetic.
Most religious types would at least venture a “My God would never tell me to do anything like that” instead of “Killing toddlers is just like killing robots in a video game.” Vox fancies himself a bit of a bad boy.
Heh. I appreciate his consistency. Every Christian should admit as much, and they maybe they’d stop and think about why they should cease to believe.
A better question would be to put Vox in the victim position. When I worked at the U, I was frequently accosted by the Converters walking across the mall. They have a standard question, “If you died today, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven?”
I would turn it around and ask them, “if believing in God meant an eternity in hell, would you still believe?”
In other words, are you believing just because you are promised a comfy afterlife or because you think it is true?
If Vox were asked by God to kill himself, would he? It’s a tougher question for an egoist like Vox who believes they are at the center of a glorious, eternal plan.
A moral person is someone who behaves a certain way because he/she TRULY cares about other people — not because of fear of punishment or promise of reward.
And if you truly care about other people, you could never murder children, even if it meant an eternity in hell for yourself.
Wow… If I recall correctly, one of those (in)famous mothers who killed her own kids did so because she was convinced that some angel or god told her that the kids would end up riddled with sin (one would be a gay prostitute, or something of that ilk). So, am I to understand that this guy would let her off the hook? Or was her delusion not communicated flawlessly enough?
I need a drink after reading that load of tripe.
Vox Day is an immense moron. Does anyone even listen to him?
It’s interesting how Vox Day explains his position:
He offers this as a statement of fact, but of course, it is more a statement of Vox Day’s ultimate moral premise. And an ugly one it is.
You don’t have to believe you have been commanded from God to justify killing the young and unborn. Most born-again Christians believe that babies, unborn children, and the very young go to heaven if they die. (A few argue that you cannot know, but when pressed most Christians would have to say they can’t imagine any other fate for children too young to make moral choices).
So, given that maybe only as many as 25% of all Americans are truly born-again (in the fundamentalist meaning of the term) it seems obvious that if you want to make sure that your kid has a good chance of going to heaven, you should either abort them, or kill them before they are old enough to wilfully commit a sin.
All they lose out on is a few measly decades of life here on Earth. That is a tiny price to pay for avoiding going to hell, suffering endless and unimaginable pain and torture and instead, guaranteeing an eternity (uncounted trillions of years) in paradise. What rational Christian parent would not want to avoid that risk, even if it meant their own, one-way trip to hell?
I don’t see what’s so unusual about this. Having put him in the White House, God told George W. Bush to invade Iraq, and George, a good Christian, obeyed his command. The result: Over 3000 American troops and untold Iraq citizens dead.
Ploink Ploink would never ask anyone to kill their kid, unless their kid was a Republican.
actually, they’re much more likely to call us immoral than amoral.
Gah,
I don’t know what’s more disturbing about that place – the posts or the moronic following he has. It’s hard to imagine a stupider conversation than his Darwin day post
Also disturbing that he thinks facial hair is feminine. He doesn’t get out much, I guess…
At any rate, I don’t think Joey likes him very much. O.o
Wow, what a great way to view your fellow human. No value-problems here…
Why is it that if you create something you can automatically destroy it whenever and however you want? Isn’t there a more plausible interpretation that says you’re actually more responsible because you created something unique?
I mean, I can see this claim as applying to mere objects — i.e., I bought my car, and now, since it’s my car, I’m gonna key the side of it because it’s mine and I can do whatever I want to it. But how the hell could someone equate humans with objects?
Sure, Abraham didn’t slash his son’s throat — but the wacko still grabbed the knife, and would have completed his task if he wasn’t stopped. And morality and value gets suspended and rejected simply because of a command.
Secular “nihilism” is always viewed as some threat — but religious nihilism is alive and well.
Sorry, still pissed at the CNN thingy…
It’s ironic the apparent pondering of the choice.
If you believe the Bible, then the question posed is *NOT* a hypothetical. And if you read and knew the bible, you shouldn’t have to ponder very long to come to the right decision.
God *DID* order things like this. Then those orders were followed, God praised and rewarded those that obeyed them. And at those times when such orders were not followed, God punished them for not obeying. (look it up!)
Okay, ‘PZ’, I know you hide behind that manifestation, but you are actually God. Now, how many railroad spiked do you want me to sledgehammer into Vox Day’s skull? (I may get a price break on quantity.)
Isn’t “Vox Day” a fake name? I thought this guy had different, real name.
One thing I’m surprised hasn’t been brought up is the story of Isaac and how God asked his father to prove his faith by killing his son. At the very last second of course God stops the father and pats him on the head for his obedience.
Perhaps Mr. Day is thinking of this scenario should his god ever ask him to do such horrible things. But it sounds like either way he is simply a willing pawn should the need arise.
And his shuffling about other gods being proven true but not his, he illustrates what was perhaps the key element in my personal gravitation away from my religious upbringing: the whole “our god is the real god and everyone else is screwed and going to hell” angle. I never could get my little head around that one, because it was inherently and openly hostile to people of other faiths, regardless of whether or not they behaved like good law-abiding citizens. To me it just sounded so totally bogus from just that aspect alone.
Mr. Day just sounds like an idiot, expounding on such topics. Granted he was asked, but he could’ve done the smart thing and just ended the topic after the question was asked. Once you get into the kind of mental machinations he’s talking about, and going through “end-times command of divinity” scenarios, it turns into a D&D geek party with an ugly more realistic twist, real fast.
“…no more inherently significant than a programmer unilaterally wiping out his AI-bots in a game universe…” Wow, now there’s an untapped market for the pro-fetus crowd…
Vox Day’s actual name: Theodore Beale.
When I program my own sentient computer program (assuming I pick C++ back up after 7 years and magically “get” object-oriented programming), I’m not going to be magically immune to basic morality in regards to it.
Must be convenient to have relativistic morality.
if you really manage to create your own true AI, then yes, you would have moral responsibilities towards it (and it have moral rights against you) analogous to, if not identical with, the rights and responsibilities in a parent-child situation. or (more likely for a first attempt, i should think) to an owner-pet situation, at least. i’m having trouble conceiving of a credible basis for morality that would not necessitate that, even though i’m about as inveterate a moral relativist as you’re likely to find. (Ted Beale’s problem is that he’s not a relativist; he thinks a (sufficiently) superior’s commands must be obeyed absolutely, and damn the torpedoes. that’s no morality at all, that’s just slavery.)
but you wouldn’t manage it writing in C++, of course. naturally, you would have to write it in Lisp.
I’m going to frame that post and the next time someone makes an argument that atheists have no morals, I’m going to hand it to them to read. Because I think this is pretty much the definition of “no morals.” Also, I’m glad that Day has religion to keep him in line — I’m afraid to think of the psychopathic tendencies Day would act on if he didn’t think he’d suffer the wrath of his god if he did.
Now let me see if I’ve got this right. Creator God commands one of his faithful to commit large scale murder on small children. This faithful one has (one would suppose) studied the ancient tomes, attended worship service, listened to many sermons and conversed with fellow believers at some length. Through personal experience I know that much of the information exchanged in these activities is centered on how to Live a Holy Life, Love One’s Fellow Man, Honor the Commandments and Emulate the Savior. This faithful one has been exposed to endless exhortations to be kind, forgiving, understanding, long suffering and, from one of my favorite bible quotes, “as cunning as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.”
But, as per Day’s own admission, it is just ducky for the Uber-Spook to order a follower to perform a task that is considered anathema, horribly lurid, detestable and, I’d add, cowardly. This while the spook knows full well that the follower would be horrified to be tasked so. People of all cultures and beliefs recoil at the very thought of “dashing out” the brains of infants, and their only moral similarities are the ones they were born with. Only a severely deranged person, or Lewis’ “Bent Oyarsa” (from the Perelandra trilogy) would ask such a thing. Though I have heard some disturbing things from Christians and believers of wilder and milder stripes, this takes the cake.
I guess this is where death squads, goons, thugs, assassins and other human berserkers begin their (quasi-) moral equivalence juggling. Yet some, like Day, think that their efforts to carry out such a mission would Glorify the Lord.
Oh so sad.
And the kicker is that I, a godless heathen, can feel something other than revulsion for him, though for the life of me I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe it’s similar to the feeling you get when you encounter a badly wounded animal and are moved to end its misery and pain. Here is the spectacle of a person so deeply wounded, so bent and deformed inwardly, that one’s initial reaction is what one would feel for a crushed but still wriggling snake on a road.
Again, deeply, confusingly sad.
I have run into this exact argument from a theist I used to debate before a philosophy class. he truly believed that if you make something, then no matter what, you can do what you want to it.
All I can say is that I am glad he’s in philosophy instead of genetics.
One of the things that was foremost in driving me away from christianity was the idea that god is outside of morality.
I looked at the stories about god commanded slaughters, and atrocities, and I concluded that I could NOT worship this horrible thing.
I still worry that christians do come to this same conclusion.
Let’s hope he doesn’t become a parent, either.
Or a programmer.
..or a wooden boy.
oh wait, that’s the end to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
sorry.
Or take an advanced degree in philosophy …
Um… Euthyphro, anyone?
I know it’s only been 2500 years since this kind of idea was shown to be ridiculous, but maybe this guy’s just a little slow.
In any case this shouldn’t be surprising, seeing as how the myth of Abraham’s attempted filicide is considered to be a good example..
“Or take an advanced degree in philosophy …”
Hope he doesn’t become take an advanced degree in philosophy? :d
Vox Day is an immense moron
he’s also a Mensa member.
… in case anyone needed another reason to not join.
Not TOTALLY untapped – remember Left Behind: Eternal Forces?
(Off-topic note – I’m de-lurking. Been a long-time Pharyngula fan. :) )
If there was a god and he told me to kill my worst enemy (whoever that is) I’d take great pleasure in telling god where to stick his commandment.
I don’t know how to make it any plainer to people than I have that I am sick of people getting into arguments about God, fighting over God, crediting God for things humans do, etc.
We are just little bits of proteins floating in a harsh, cold cosmos and it’s time that we stuck together. How, from where we came, did we lose that idea and go at each other’s throats over whether or not some of us adore an imaginary, alien entity? It’s absurd.
The sissified, prosperity-and-gimmicks driven “Christianity” of today bears no resemblance to traditional Christianity, itself still a form of making ourselves into pets (for someone who isn’t there). We’ve domesticated animals; now we’re doing a fabulous job on ourselves. Not me.
It’s time we jettison these ideas and become once again the dignified animal that first stood erect.
” Vox Day is an immense moron. Does anyone even listen to him? ”
Vox Day once explained why he shouldn’t be considered a ‘chickenhawk’. He said that he tried to enlist but the first, (and only) recruitment center that he visited to sign up for military service, didn’t want him. Priceless. You can’t make this stuff up.
And then one day old vox suffers a mental breakdown and god starts telling him to do all sorts of dastardly things and hey, why not god told him to. One read of the newspapers will turn up at least one person that slaughtered a child because the voices in their head told them to do it.
God has responded to this controversy on Our blog (God: Would You Massacre Children for Me?) and He basically agreed with Vox. He says morality does not come from an evolved instinct for altruism or a logical sense of the fairness of the Golden Rule, but from Him alone, no matter what He says, and even if He’s drunk.
I think his fake name is a spin off of ‘vox dei’, which means the ‘voice of god’, IIRC.
CREEPY!
I feel strangely embarrassed for god. You’d think he’d pick his spokepeople a little more carefully. (You’d also think the creator of the universe would be able to just say what he wanted himself, but whatever. Details schmeetails.)
Appalling. A new and sickening twist on moral relativism.
Vox Day is a prime example of the profound amorality of those who profess that no morality exists without God – a God whose moral authority is so absolute, that “morality” can change in a moment according to His whim while He Himself is not bound to any moral code whatsoever. V
V.D. exemplifies the kind of nihilism that theists are always trying to pin on atheists.
Nice response by Brent, anyways…
I recogize this old Star Trek plot – Kirk overpowers the computer by stating a logical absurdity, the computer fails to resolve the paradox and blows its tubes. In this case Vox should have been left mumbling “I have been told ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and now I am told ‘Kill!'” until his head melts down.
Things were so much simpler in the Star Trek Universe.
Great. Now I’ll never get to sleep. Not until I can clear my head of the image of a heavily-armed Theodore Beale floating around in mid-air, droning “Sterilize… Sterilize… Sterilize…”
By the way, Mr. “Day” should know that calling ones self Vox Dei (homophonically or otherwise) is at best a flamboyant display of hubris; at worst, blasphemous and mortally risky.
“But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.” – Deuteronomy 18:20
Nit: Not ‘untold’. Estimated at 650,000 . ( More .)
Something that happens often, apparently.
Crossposted from Unscrewing:
I have to disagree with both Vox and Brent there.
“Don’t kill kids” is not particularly written into our nature by evolution; in fact, both human and animal infanticide may be partially explainable on evolutionary grounds. Getting rid of unrelated kids, or even your own if you have too many to care for, can be quite good for your fitness.
Moreover, “Evolution says so” is hardly an effective moral justification. If it were, celibacy would be the gravest of sins, and most believers and nonbelievers alike don’t agree with that. Evolutionary theory can explain why most of us aren’t celibate, but not why we should or shouldn’t be.
The fact is, “I wouldn’t like it” is the explanation why most of us wouldn’t slaughter children if commanded to. We wouldn’t like it a whole lot. We’d like it even less than the prospect of disobeying our creator. Vox, on the other hand, would apparently rather toddler-massacre than disobey (although I have my doubts that he’d actually go through with it.) And that’s the whole story. Most of us, in turn, would rather try to stop Vox if he goes on a toddler-massacre than sit around and watch TV. And so forth. Evolutionary theory and religious studies and psychoanalysis may explain why our moral preferences and impulses are what they are, but that doesn’t make them any more or less valid.
To paraphrase Dick Garner: After you realize that God doesn’t exist anywhere but inside your head, the next step is to realize the same thing about morality.
ummm…
Day was answering an (obvious) rhetorical trap. If the discussion were to be read and followed,
you would find that he is NOT, in fact, advocating killing infants. The issue involves absolute morality and obedience- the morality being defined as a Command from God. Since the Christian church has long been guilty of being “pro-life” (rescuing exposed Roman infants in the first century) there is de facto evidence that Christ has not commanded offing toddlers. Then there’s that whole New Testament thing…Jesus blessing the little children.
If God commanded to kill the li’l babies, it would be Moral.
He has not, so it is not moral.
Reading with comprehension is much to be desired.
Damn, you people are missing the point. It is something that I realized even during my days as an agnostic. If God exists, God made right and wrong along with every so-called law of the universe. For morality to even mean anything, except as a private experience, it must be regarded as a law of the universe. So you think you’re moral, what does that mean? We can prove gravity, but we cannot quantify morality. That is the crux of the matter. You cannot box in a reproducible definition of morality the way you can any universal law of the universe.
All morality is an opinion. Every last trace of what we call morality is purely an opinion. It depends on whose opinion it is. I for one have no regard for what some bloviating fool thinks is right and wrong. Human authority is by definition hypocritical and all man-made morality is self-serving and enabling of sanctimony. I have noticed that every atheist who borrows from Judao-Christian morality always avoids the harder moral restrictions such as the ones on sexuality. Why? Again, man-made morality is meant to make a man feel justified. This “morality” is a self-serving delusion, and I have always seen through it for what it really is.
At what point does it even really matter? If the creator of the universe tells me through direct revelation that someone’s life has no value, I am not going to dispute that. Why should I? This being just so happened to have created a whole bloody universe. What can I do to compare to that? Nothing. What is a man compared to that? Not much. And let’s be blunt about one thing. It takes more stupidity than it does integrity or grit to vehemently disagree with that sort of being.
You guys who are calling Vox all kinds of names are just passive aggressive, self pitying fools who need strife and controversy in your lives.
The man is right on. Read his articles and his blog, rather than have a pity party as you moan and bitch about a sentence or two here and there that is taken out of context.
It takes more stupidity than it does integrity or grit to vehemently disagree with that sort of being.
it takes more imagination than grit to postulate the existence of such a being to begin with, I’d say.
what grit does it take to disagree with an imaginary friend?
and Joe…
taken out of context???
BWAHAHAHAHA!
that’s a gud un.
Joe Fletcher:
Please. Your claims of “namecalling” are belied by the fact that I have resisted the temptation to deliberately misrender your name as “felcher” (oops). And I’d be very interested in seeing you find a context for Vox Day’s comments containing A) the implication that calling someone feminine is an insult and B) the explicit claim that murdering small children is ok if the voices in one’s head that tell you to call themselves “God” that would render them non-objectionable.
MikeT: Your assertions are flatly incorrect and you have not even attempted to engage the majority of people, Christian and non-Christian alike, who flatly disagree with you. It takes more stupidity than grit or integrity to blithely and baldly assert that might makes right in front of a group of adults, or even moderately intelligent children. Grit and integrity would indeed be required to disobey an order from a genocidal tyrant, but doing so would be morally imperative. Your claims to the contrary simply show that you wouldn’t recognize morality if it bit you on the ass. When you have an argument that doesn’t nakedly beg the question, we’ll be glad to hear it.
You guys who are calling Vox all kinds of names are just passive aggressive,
Passive aggressive?
I am not even sure how blog commenters could pull off passive aggressive over the Internet. Say we have a great rebuttal and will be posting later, then pull a disappearing act?
Me thinks the commenters here are pulling off the best active aggressive they can over these here interweb pipes.
self pitying fools
I see no examples of self pity. Perhaps a few cases of pity for whatever neurological conditions other people have.
who need strife and controversy in your lives
No, no. More like we need less irrational, destructive and wasteful religeous fervor on our planet. If all I wanted was strife and controversy in my life, I could whip up a nice ‘pro gay-wolf-atheist-indian-muslim’ placard and go marching through my small Idaho town. Would most likely get more than enough to last the rest of my impressively short existence.
you moan and bitch about a sentence or two here and there that is taken out of context.
May I please second that fish guy’s BWAHAHAHAHA!
Vox’s little blog entry in question consisted of eighteen sentences. Brent’s response which inspired PZ’s link quoted and responded to seventeen of them.
Was the one nonrebutted sentence that integral to Vox’s point? Has Vox managed to apply Jenga principles to writing? Pull out the one key sentence and the other seventeen are now out of context?
… whats wrong with Vox’s statment, is it not correct?… surely you atheists champions of good reason can break it down…
to the monotheist the value of morality is merely a product of obediance to God, (God) who is the definition of all that is righteousness…
and any self declared Christian should READ the bible and know that God had instructed the armies of Israel in the past to wipe out tribes of people(women and children included) in the OT…
If the Supreme Court told you that you MAY kill certain kinds of children under 2 years of age, would you?
Would there ever be any consideration that you would consider it at all?
.
Clearly Vox is a moron. Just like terrorists justify murder in the name of God and obviously aren’t good muslims, any christian who believes what Vox says about killing toddlers at God’s command isn’t a real christian. Anybody ever heard of Jesus’ saying “Whatever you do to the least of them, you do also to me”? In other words, be merciful and help one another. Jesus was radical in that he preached love, tolerance, and an open mind towards others.
If it’s correct under his moral system, his moral system is diabolic. Is this so hard to understand?
That’s the problem.
So is this.
I’m not going to do the research, but are we to assume that Vox Day is no longer blaming terrorists for 9/11, but is now blaming their god for asking them to do it? Surely they must have had the proper proofs that it was their god, since they were willing to die. And does this mean that Day’s god is letting the US be attacked by other gods?
If the Supreme Court told you that you MAY kill certain kinds of children under 2 years of age, would you?
Would there ever be any consideration that you would consider it at all?
I take it that since there has been no response to this question on this blog, the answer is a clear “Yes!” Obviously, since everything is subjective and morals/morality is only determined by what we deem them to be, there are cases when some two-year olds should be “offed.” If they are critically ill, or mentally handicapped, or hit their sister….
Steve:
WTF? I’m willing to bet that no one answered because a) they considered answering that as akin to feeding a troll, b)to anyone with any morals whatsoever, the answer would obviously be, “NO!”, c) or they were just ignoring another asshat.
No answer does not mean “a clear “Yes!”“. It simply means no one would stoop to your level and answer.
-Berlzebub
God uses foolishness to confound the wise. The lot of you must be very wise indeed.
No answer does not mean “a clear “Yes!””. It simply means no one would stoop to your level and answer.
Why would it ‘obviously be, “No!”‘? What if I was a cannibal and was hungry? Aren’t my morals as good as yours? If not, why not? Based on what and whose morals are we considering? What is stooping to “my level” mean? Typical ad hominem attacks for those that cannot provide an answer.
Or what if the umbilical cord of the child was not yet cut?
..
.
MikeT,
If God exists, God made right and wrong along with every so-called law of the universe. For morality to even mean anything, except as a private experience, it must be regarded as a law of the universe.
You seem to have a very specific conception of God in mind. It is certainly possible to conceive of an evil or indifferent God as well as a good one, or of a limited God that created some things, but not morality.
The whole discussion raises one of the basic problems of traditional theism, the Euthyphro dilemma. Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? The latter would mean that God is not sovereign, that morality exists independently of him and he is subservient to it. The former would mean that morality is a matter of God’s whim, which begs the question of why we should act in accordance with God’s whims rather than make our own independent decisions about right and wrong.
And that in turn points to the fundamental problem with describing morality as a “law of the universe.” The things we normally describe as “laws of the universe” or “laws of nature” cannot be violated. That’s what makes them laws. But if we can choose to violate these postulated moral “laws of the universe” they cannot be laws in the sense that the natural laws of physics or chemistry are laws. We can commit murder even if there is a “law of the universe” that murder is wrong. But we cannot violate the laws of gravity or thermodynamics even if we want to.
You contradict yourself there, I think. If “all morality is an opinion”–and I agree–then who cares what a deity thinks is right and wrong? It’s still just an opinion. If the creator of the universe tells you someone’s life has no value, then the creator of the universe is an asshole, that’s all.
Which is not to say you might not pay attention to his moral opinions, since it would be nice to avoid Hell if you could. But they’re not better than anyone else’s. Just backed up by a whole lot more firepower.
If they were terminally, agonizingly ill and also on fire, I’d definitely consider it. But then I probably would consider it even if the Supreme Court didn’t tell me that.
That works just as well backwards. If morality is subjective, then I might have the subjective moral opinion that children should never be killed. In which case, absolutely no circumstance–no scientific data, no divine decree–could change that.
Conversely, as Vox has so ably demonstrated, if morality is objective–for instance, if morality stems from the commands of God–then sure, children should be slaughtered if the objective conditions are satisfied. God says so, you do it. No argument, right?
So moral subjectivity/objectivity has nothing to do with whether you’d be willing to perform a given action under any circumstances.
Because if you accept subjective morality, or moral arealism, or a similar position, then it’s meaningless to ask whether your morals are as good as mine. Your morals, apparently, aren’t mine. Some people, cannibals and so forth, have killed kids for reasons like food or entertainment or religion, so evidently their morals accommodate that sort of thing. Most of the posters on this forum don’t think that way.
Back at ya–if you do believe in objective morality, then what’s objectively wrong with slaughtering children for food or fun or to satisfy a divine command? What if that’s just what the moral truths of reality command? If not, how do you know?
No. We don’t subscribe to moral relativism. You know this. Moral systems are better or worse depending on the consequences practicing them has for people, both as individuals and as a society. You know this. The morals you describe would result in a great deal of needless suffering. You know this.
We’re done now.
As far as I can tell, nobody does. “Moral relativist” is something for people to call other people with different opinions on morality.
Bone head wrote: If the Supreme Court told you that you MAY kill certain kinds of children under 2 years of age, would you?
Am I the only one who thinks this is a question about the morality of abortion by choice?
“If the Supreme Court told you that you MAY kill certain kinds of children under 2 years of age, would you?” Am I the only one who thinks this is a question about the morality of abortion by choice?
Yep, ‘Bone Head’ went through this over at Vox’s, successively lowering the age. Subtle.
Over here, he got a bit impatient and said this right after his first comment:
“Or what if the umbilical cord of the child was not yet cut?”
A 2-year-old with an intact umbilical cord? :)
Thanks, Windy. Somehow I missed Bone Head’s follow-up.
It evokes the “Would you save the two-year old, or the test tube containing 100 frozen blastocysts?” question…
Windy,
Reading comprehension problem. The question read “children under 2 years.
Because a 1.9-year-old with an intact umbilical cord makes so much more sense.
Anton Mates,
According to the Supreme Court in the example, it does.
Now that you have decided to interpret the ruling according to your own morality, how about a 2 monthe old?
How about a 2 minute old?
How about a -2 minute old?
How about a -2month old?
There’s no such thing as a -2 minute old or a -2 month old human being. The condition of being a human person with independent legal rights begins at birth. It begins at the point where the organism in question acquires an independent existence and ceases to be a parasite on the mother according to a literal reading of conventional definitions. Is that really so hard to grasp?
Therefore, for you, Azkyroth, legal and moral are synonymous.
Given that, you must agree that IF the Supreme Court declared it legal to kill children, (even under your definition of children) under 2 years of age, it would also be a moral act.
.
Depends.
Depends.
Depends.
Depends.
Generally speaking, I’ll set the justification bar higher for older children, because I think they’re mentally more-developed. But I would certainly advocate euthanasia for, say, a severely-brain-damaged 2-year-old in an immense amount of pain and misery, and I would certainly not advocate euthanasia for the healthy, 7-month old fetus of a woman with the desire and ability to provide for her baby.
Everything in between…depends. Such is life.
Um, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.
Azkyroth or yourself, Anton, may not think that is what it means, but within the context of my hypothetical question, I maintain that it can mean nothing else.
As far as parasitism goes, if a fetus is a parasite of the mother, humankind is a parasite of the Earth, and should be given no more consideration for “right to life” than any other parasite, either individually or collectively.
.
.
Why couldn’t it mean, “One’s moral status as a human being begins at birth, which is why one’s legal status generally does as well?” It hardly follows from that that changing the law would alter the situation morally–that just means that sometimes laws can be immoral.
That would at least begin to make sense if the Earth were a sentient being with its own right to autonomy.
And what is the source of the right of a sentient being to its own autonomy?
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What is the source of the right of a sentient being to its own autonomy?
Sapience.
Depends on your moral code. For me, it follows from the fact that a sentient being tends to know better than anyone else what actions will bring it happiness. No doubt it varies for others.
Would you like to argue for a particular source of that right, and why it’s more valid than any other?
If there are as many moral codes as there are (also have been or will be) humans, morality ceases to have a useful meaning in terms of discussion or action.
I would also contend that sentient beings are not always the best judge of what will bring them happiness. This is obvious when one sentient being observes the actions of another and can predict an unhappy outcome.
With all moral codes being absolutely relative, “might makes right” is the only principle left, therefore to avoid anarchy, legal authority must be applied. In this case, legality is morality.
If one believes in a diety from whom all creation flows, and that diety prescribes a moral code to be universally followed by all humans, then obedience is morality.
The validity of either system is proven merely by its ability to enforce its code through sanctions on the individual.
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Even if that were true, it would not be an argument against the former claim. That you’d prefer morality to be a useful concept doesn’t make it one. Dick Garner agrees with you on this, incidentally, and thinks we should therefore drop moral language.
However, I would disagree. Morality is a useful way of describing a certain class of one’s own motivations and feelings, just like aesthetics or emotional language. If you tell me that slavery is evil, that your spouse is the most wonderful person in the world, and that bananas taste terrible, that may not tell me anything about slavery, your spouse or bananas. But it tells me quite a bit about you.
I said, “a sentient being tends to know better than anyone else what actions will bring it happiness”. There are certainly exceptions, which is one reason why the right to autonomy is not absolute in my eyes. Parental control over children would be one example.
On the contrary, “might makes right” is incompatible with subjective morality. If morality is subjective, nothing makes right except your own mind. The powerful may be more able to enforce their version of a moral world, but that’s true regardless of the nature of morality. Might makes might, that’s all.
Law is merely a means of exploiting general similarities in human moral systems to create a behavioral code most of us more or less agree with. It will, almost inevitably, differ from your own moral code in various particulars, but that may be something worth putting up with in return for its nudging other people toward your standard. If not, you may resort to civil disobedience.
And how does this prevent anarchy, if other humans believe that this deity is nonexistent; that it exists but prescribes a different moral code; or that it exists but has no authority to prescribe morality (it may be a demon, or a Gnostic demiurge)?
It doesn’t, which is why we see that monotheistic societies are no less dependent on legal authority than any other society. If two people differ on an ethical or political question, it is not resolved by each declaring that God is on their side; in fact, that’s usually a sign that it will never be resolved except by force.
“Validity” in what value system?
Has God ever told anyone to try gay sex? NO. Eat their greens? NO. It’s always kill, kill, kill, kill, kill with God, isn’t it- the one deadly terrible sin you can reliably get away with by claiming that the Big Man told you to do it.
From suicide bombers to maniac serial killers, it’s always the same: “God said it was OK to kill people nyeh nyeh nyeh”. Well, I’m going to be the first person to claim that God told me to indulge in consensual homosexual acts on a number of seperate occaisions, and I had no choice but to obey his icky commands… however much it revolted me at the time (tee hee).
“Well, I’m going to be the first person to claim that God told me to indulge in consensual homosexual acts on a number of seperate occaisions, and I had no choice but to obey his icky commands… however much it revolted me at the time (tee hee).”
You win, Wade. You win at life. May I do this too?
“God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son’.”