Quebec bans religious teaching in publicly subsidized daycares

[giblets]

Puritanism

By far the worst thing about it is that it inspired the book The Scarlet Letter. I ****ing hated that book.

I liked that book enough to actually read it.

[Hauldren Collider]

I liked that book enough to actually read it.

Well, I had to write an essay about it. I ended up writing on how he uses the word "bosom" several times. It's actually once every two pages.

I got an A too!

[Kuciwalker]

You sure as hell did say it. Maybe you no longer feel that way now? Good, it was stupid.

I have no idea what you're talking about and still believe you're making **** up, but let's do another thought experiment:

Norman Borlaug is credited with saving something like a billion lives from famine. You discover that he was also a serial killer and rapist - wouldn't you still, on balance, be happier that he existed? If you could choose which world existed - the one with him or the one without - if you pick the one without him, you are an idiot. That's "simple" but it also true.

From there it's the classic "everyone is a prostitute" algorithm to decide whether the consumer surplus from MJ's works would outweigh whatever bad things he might have done. You actually are smart enough to know this; at least, I think you are, since you successfully apply it to arguments that support your ideology.

Simple axioms can produce complex outcomes but that doesn't mean the simple axioms are enough to define a specific complex outcome. Sometimes they can, often they can't. Theory's always nice when it works.

Do you have anything coherent to say, or are you just going to argue that science is bad?

Protip: ALL OF SCIENCE is "let's find the simplest axioms that most accurately predict the system's behavior".

[Kuciwalker]

Peter, you're honestly not any better than Kidicious in this thread. I know you're angry that I pretty regularly explain how dumb your ideas are - but the correct solution is to stop believing stupid things.

[Kuciwalker]

For the record, the "simplistic" views he's attributing to me are things like "killing lots of people to no valuable end is evil".

[Hauldren Collider]

Do you have anything coherent to say, or are you just going to argue that science is bad?

Protip: ALL OF SCIENCE is "let's find the simplest axioms that most accurately predict the system's behavior".

And there are lots of science theories that are broken and wrong, where the simplest axioms turn out not to sufficiently cover behavior. What I'm saying is that your simple axioms are broken and wrong, and fail to cover even a small subset of human behavior and then correctly classify it into your black and white buckets of "good and evil".

And really, you're going to have to define "valuable end" for your classification to make any sense and not mean anything possible.

[Kuciwalker]

And there are lots of science theories that are broken and wrong, where the simplest axioms turn out not to sufficiently cover behavior. What I'm saying is that your simple axioms are broken and wrong, and fail to cover even a small subset of human behavior and then correctly classify it into your black and white buckets of "good and evil".

In which case calling the rules simple is not pejorative you moron. You disagree with my conclusions - fine. (You're wrong, but that's because you're an idiot and not because I'm super-smart.) And the only (fake) example you've given of my reasoning you disagree with is ACTUALLY an example of your own cognitive dissonance! You steadfastly agree with the proposition that $ values can be put on human lives - in which case, yes, MJ's $ contribution to humanity can be directly measured against his alleged crimes.

And really, you're going to have to define "valuable end" for your classification to make any sense and not mean anything possible.

1) No, I don't, it still contains meaningful moral claims. Why this is so is left as an exercise the reader (though you aren't really clever enough to see it).
2) Human happiness, duh.

[C0ckney]

Well, obviously there's no formal study on the matter, but I'd say most people occupy a sort of middle ground, at best. Not angels, not devils (of course, saying the average person behaves in an average way is kind of , but hopefully you know what I mean). And the reason they act that way is that they've found it to be the optimal behavior pattern. Selflessness is unprofitable, complete egotism is ultimately self-destructive, so they stick to the middle. Which generally consists of neglecting moral obligations rather than actively immoral behavior.

i think it really depends on what you mean by somewhere in the middle. if you mean that people don't act in moral way 100% of the time then i would agree with you. if we look at our own lives, i'm sure everyone can think of examples where they've taken the low road. i don't see how that contradicts what i wrote though, so i'm guessing you meant something different.

[C0ckney]

If you believe that morality is biology it's no wonder that you believe this. Human beings are not good. They do all their thinking in the unconcious mind where they use self-deception to get what they want and insure the survival of the individual and the group. That's not morality. Morality is the rejection of the natural inclinations of human thinking and behaviour.

[Elok]

i think it really depends on what you mean by somewhere in the middle. if you mean that people don't act in moral way 100% of the time then i would agree with you. if we look at our own lives, i'm sure everyone can think of examples where they've taken the low road. i don't see how that contradicts what i wrote though, so i'm guessing you meant something different.

I think that, much of the time, our behavior is dictated not by morals but by expediency. A good portion of the time, the moral thing is also the expedient thing--most opportunities to steal, for example, don't offer enough benefit to outweigh the risk. The rule of law in my country (and, I assume, yours as well) is relatively strong, and you typically don't get the opportunity to steal enough to make it worthwhile.

But plenty of people will steal in extreme low-risk situations--electronic piracy being the most obvious example. I don't believe the main impediments to piracy are moral scruples. You can pick up all sorts of viruses that way, not everyone is all that tech-savvy, it takes an aggravatingly long time to download large files, most files aren't especially valuable, et cetera. If all those things were gone, how many people do you think would engage in some form of piracy, whether movies, games, songs, or software? I say 50%, minimum.

[C0ckney]

i think it's both moral rules and expediency. lets say you give 100 people the opportunity to steal $10 from another person with a no risk of getting caught, or $500, or $10,000, or $1,000,000. i suspect the number who would take the opportunity would rise as the amount went up. you could also raise the risk factor and i suspect here the number of people who took the money would fall. you could introduce other factors such as the identity of the other person, a stranger, someone you know or a loved one for example. i think in these situations people would be guided both by moral rules and expediency, but i think that almost all would recognise stealing as 'wrong'.

i also think that most situations in life are not black and white, and there are often many choices each with pros and cons. so rather than choosing between a 'right' and 'wrong' answer (or black and white), it's dealing with the shades of grey, weighing up the choices before us and trying to make the best decision.

[Elok]

I can accept (most of) that. However, I'd add that it's not whether they recognize the behavior as 'wrong' that matters, it's whether they go ahead and do it anyway. Bearing in mind our mighty powers of rationalization, and all that.

[C0ckney]

yes i agree with you there. people are more than capable of rationalising choices that most of us would regard as immoral. this is especially true where you have a situation with a lot of grey in it.

in addition i think it is hard to research this sort of thing. i think we'd all like to say that we would make a moral choice, but when confronted with temptation it can be a very different story. so my statements about how moral or otherwise people are generally only come from my own observations and experiences.

[Kidlicious]

"People lie about their believes to do things like get elected president."

This has to be a troll...

Not at all. You seemingly don't know much about true human nature. In our unconscious mind we believe one thing and consciously we believe another. The reason we do that is because it helps us succeed in society and reproduce. For example, an atheist could never be elected president so he pretends to be a Christian.

The atheist that believes in objective morality (or some crap like 'be nice' cause that's what everyone else says to do) does so to justify his beliefs and actions (although subconsciously he doesn't believe in morality at all), but he claims that his beliefs are reasonable (objective). Unfortunately for him, objective morality (if it were actually morality) wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. And this is why, if morality were to be objective the individual with the "objective morality" wouldn't be concerned at all about their moral "convictions." The reason our moral convictions are so strong is because they are subjective. We are passionate about our subjective beliefs. That passion is abscent from our beliefs on objective certainties. For example, no one cares at all if 2+2=4 or if it doesn't. But if you truly have a moral conviction then you are very passionate about it. Therefore, it is an objective uncertainty and a subective conviction.

So the atheist who claims to believe in objective morality (or that be nice crap) is just being deceptive. His so called morality doesn't amount to anything because he does not care about it and it doesn't regulate his behaviour. Only moral convictions that one appropriates to themselves in the subjective are true moral convictions because they regulate behaviour.

And that is why atheists should never be trusted when they say they have moral convictions.

[Wezil]

Keep talking Kid. You are bringing people to our side.

I see posters like you and Ben (and the other broken by religion people here) and know there is no way I would ever want to be religious.