Moral Bigotry Without Religion

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Does moral bigotry without religion exist? If so, how does it exist?

Example #1: Moral bigotry with religion. One man eats a pig. Or he serves one for dinner. Another man says, no, whoever eats that will go to Hell. He thinks the first man is trying to send him to Hell, so he kills him. Now, if he's right, this is legitimately self-defence. If the first man will commit one atrocity, he may very well lie and try to do it again. If eating a pig is really an atrocity, then you don't even need to justify that he may send you to Hell. He's done something beyond terrible so he gets punished and most people accept that if you do something horrible enough, death might be a suitable punishment.

Example #2: Morality, without bigotry. One population thinks scams and lies are perfectly fine, but violence is never okay, while the other side thinks violence is fine if it's against dishonesty and scams which are never justified. The honest people agree not to kill the scammers, and the scammers agree to at least display in their businesses that they are lie- and scam-allowed. Now, with this compromise, both sides can live in the same society in a way that is fair to both, though each side has had to make a sacrifice: The honesty-enforced side cannot use violence against the scammer side even if they are deceived, as they would with their own, and the scammer side cannot completely pretend they are honest, as they think they have every right to do. Since each compromise requires sacrifices on both sides, theoretically, with enough compromises, everyone becomes unhappy.

I used to think there was no overlap, and a religious society must have moral bigotry, while two nonreligious people would simply have to work it out like they did in example 2, or simply not live together if they can't mutually agree on a compromise. This is because the religious person believes he (or his god) has a higher moral authority, and the nonreligious person does not believe that. I've learned there can be religious morality without bigotry, if a higher authority exists but didn't decide every nuance. Or if a higher authority exists but two people who both believe something different, can never quite be sure they're right about what it wants, so compromise has to be done in practice. But I don't see how there can be nonreligious moral bigotry.

If the nonreligious person believes he has a higher moral authority, and doesn't have to compromise because he is simply righteous and the other person isn't, how could he possibly come to this belief? I've always been very fair to the religious, assuming every rational motive I possibly can, and I ask for likewise in return: Please assume this nonreligious person is not simply insane. How can he possibly believe as he does?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to William in post #30]

I have no idea of what any of that is supposed to mean other than a muddled word - salad to confuse the issue so you can apparently appeal to some Truth we can access by some sprituo -mentalist power.

If not that, I have no idea what you are trying to say. I invite you to post something coherent.

It's like this (according to the evidence). Animals react one to the other, Prey and predator, fight or flight.

It got more pack or flock - related because it aided survival.
Primates had tribes, and still do.

With farming rather than hunter - gathering, family co-operation became society and it needed rules and rulers and methods of coercion to enforce them, e,g social boycott or banishment, knocking about or death. With more complex society, came more complex morals, laws and administration.

With the Bronze age came States, political boundaries and war. It has got more complicates and with social evolution and revision ever since, and quite apart fro m going back to old religious tomes with talk of stonings and selling your daughters, it does not help to wail about how complicated and relative morality is now, and how much it is falling short of an ideal that religion ever failed to deliver thank you very much.

I think back to my childhood, and realise that the idea that things are getting so much worse is a delusion caused by ignorance, prejudice and short - sightedness.

During the post cold war honeymoon, we got a glimpse of how the world could be. China and Russia coming in from the cold. We can get through this and try for that ideal again. and it will only be helped by sidelining appeals to religion or Chophraesque mental manifestations to save all our souls, as well as hand - wringing over the problems we have. Such things are a waste of time and space, and thank you and goodnight.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #31]

We can get through this and try for that ideal again. and it will only be helped by sidelining appeals to religion or Chophraesque mental manifestations to save all our souls, as well as hand - wringing over the problems we have. Such things are a waste of time and space, and thank you and goodnight.

So no - you have no examples to offer which collaborate your faith that things are actually getting better for everyone.

That was predictable of course.

Whichever way one looks, what one is looking at is the product of a Con.

I have no idea of what any of that is supposed to mean other than a muddled word - salad to confuse the issue so you can apparently appeal to some Truth we can access by some sprituo -mentalist power.

I find it difficult to take seriously those who claim everything is a product of mindless chaos when mathematics clearly shows us the evidence of mindful order.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #31]

We can get through this and try for that ideal again. and it will only be helped by sidelining appeals to religion or Chophraesque mental manifestations to save all our souls, as well as hand - wringing over the problems we have. Such things are a waste of time and space, and thank you and goodnight.

So no - you have no examples to offer which collaborate your faith that things are actually getting better for everyone.

That was predictable of course.

Whichever way one looks, what one is looking at is the product of a Con.

I have no idea of what any of that is supposed to mean other than a muddled word - salad to confuse the issue so you can apparently appeal to some Truth we can access by some sprituo -mentalist power.

I find it difficult to take seriously those who claim everything is a product of mindless chaos when mathematics clearly shows us the evidence of mindful order.

The evidence that overall, humanity is making progress is to be found in the history books. That things are problematic right now is a shortsighted view and one that frankly is part of the problem.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #33]

The evidence that overall, humanity is making progress is to be found in the history books.

"Making progress" towards what?

That things are problematic right now is a shortsighted view and one that frankly is part of the problem.

What "problem" is this "shortsightedness" re the claimed "progress"?

For one usually not lost for words, your scant replies don't give the reader much to go on...re whatever it is you are attempting to argue...

[Purple Knight]

...Sometimes I think I'm the last person alive who thinks that just because I disagree with someone, doesn't mean they're wrong and should be punished.

That's probably because your claimed position is untenable. To believe as you do, that child abuse might be right and that child abusers should be able to baby sit your kids, only works in the fictional world of your imagination.

In reality you do not wish you children to be raped just in case they might like it, you do want to infringe on a rapists freedom to act as he or she wishes.

I do believe that child abuse might be right, and that I don't get to tell people how to behave. I do not believe that such people should be able to babysit my kids if I can help it.

If everyone gets to do as they like, I get to defend my kids from the rapist. We actually have this concept of immediacy enshrined in law: Self-defence has to have immediacy. You can't go and kill someone because they might kill you, even if you have every rational reason to expect it. If morality is also constrained by immediacy, I get to defend my kids because they are legitimately my charges, but I don't get to go out and hunt people down for doing something I think is horribly wrong, if they're not bothering me.

Worse to mislabel those that believe in justice (which is essentially the application of what us right and good) as moral bigotry , you prepare the ground for the worst kind of evil, namely evil masqerading as good and a cultish adherence to fantasy that puts the innocent and defensless at risk.

I'm not labeling those who believe in justice as moral bigots. I think it's wonderful that most people in Western countries do believe in justice (or, used to) and that they also believe in their right to make laws that serve their own populace and its beliefs. They're only moral bigots if they'd go into a different, but totally functional society, with different rules, and impose their own.

There is some danger in my philosophy that evil will just go on, yes. But there's equal danger on the other side, and it's MORE relevant to our current world. There aren't a lot of people just letting evil happen. There are a lot of people sniffing for anything they can label as evil and hunting it down. In some cases, the danger of this side has entirely absorbed the danger from my side, and retained the ills of their own side, because one of the things they can package as evil to be hunted down and exterminated, is failing to respect other cultures.

We have the modern world we have (and hopefully we both agree it's a little twisted) not because anyone believes in what I often call the Star Trek way - leaving people alone unless they're bothering you - but because they are crusaders and zealots who have picked up on the leaving-people-alone thing as one more thing they can be morally bigoted about. There are certainly weak spots in my idea, but people pushing universal tolerance on others dictatorially is a flat and simplistic contradiction.

You're not a moral bigot if you throw a rapist in jail to keep your family safe, especially in a society where we agree not to rape people. The rapist, realistically, is not some moral paragon, fighting for his way of universal rape in a morally bigoted society that is biased against him. On the outside it's possible to get this with murder in an extremely degenerated lawyeristic society, but probably not possible with rape. In reality, the rapist doesn't want to be raped either, and he'd quickly change his tune, then scream and whine that it was wrong if it did happen to him. If we cordoned off a state for him (perhaps California) and rebranded it Rapetopia, he wouldn't move there.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #31]

We can get through this and try for that ideal again. and it will only be helped by sidelining appeals to religion or Chophraesque mental manifestations to save all our souls, as well as hand - wringing over the problems we have. Such things are a waste of time and space, and thank you and goodnight.

So no - you have no examples to offer which collaborate your faith that things are actually getting better for everyone.

That was predictable of course.

Whichever way one looks, what one is looking at is the product of a Con.

I have no idea of what any of that is supposed to mean other than a muddled word - salad to confuse the issue so you can apparently appeal to some Truth we can access by some sprituo -mentalist power.

I find it difficult to take seriously those who claim everything is a product of mindless chaos when mathematics clearly shows us the evidence of mindful order.

The evidence that overall, humanity is making progress is to be found in the history books. That things are problematic right now is a shortsighted view and one that frankly is part of the problem.

This is neither a politics forum nor a historical one and it is actually simple. Only ignorance or denial requires a long explanation.

Life expectancy was worse than what it is today. Health was worse, Medical care was worse, education was worse.

#200 years before it was worse than it was 100 years ago and 200 years before that, even worse.

The idiots ...no, enthusiasts and fans of the glorious old days, don't know how awful it really was. Our lives are paradisical compared to what they would have been 200 years ago in dentistry alone.

That we moan about how bad thing are is shortsighted and ignorant, which can be excused. Denial when inforned and educated in what they didn't know and hasn't been told them before, is inexcusable.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #36]

Even a cursory look at any aspect of history informs us that theism lead the charge into the present and continues to do so into the future.

We can see by Elon Musk’s expression into the world, that he is a theist. If one is to add into that equation the idea that Elon was inspired by something he at first had no idea existed, we can see how it is that the vision of the mindfulness involved is centred upon the bests way to move forward given the circumstances.

This involves (but is not limited to) human settlements on Mars, integration of human brains into non-biological machinery, creating $ to move in that direction and a keen sense of love for human life and its foothold within this simulation, as Elon understands it to be.

While anti-theism has always been an annoyance, it has never successfully and never shall successfully derail The Creator’s (of this simulation) purpose for humans.

Note: The type of antitheism I am speaking of is also that which comes from the religious against other religions. It seeks conflict rather than resolution.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #36]

Even a cursory look at any aspect of history informs us that theism lead the charge into the present and continues to do so into the future.

We can see by Elon Musk’s expression into the world, that he is a theist. If one is to add into that equation the idea that Elon was inspired by something he at first had no idea existed, we can see how it is that the vision of the mindfulness involved is centred upon the bests way to move forward given the circumstances.

This involves (but is not limited to) human settlements on Mars, integration of human brains into non-biological machinery, creating $ to move in that direction and a keen sense of love for human life and its foothold within this simulation, as Elon understands it to be.

While anti-theism has always been an annoyance, it has never successfully and never shall successfully derail The Creator’s (of this simulation) purpose for humans.

Note: The type of antitheism I am speaking of is also that which comes from the religious against other religions. It seeks conflict rather than resolution.

Yes, ok. Obviously, I don't think much of religions against other religions. This is like gang war between cartels about selling their puggle to the users. Atheism is about kicking the habit, and there are no tithes.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #36]

Even a cursory look at any aspect of history informs us that theism lead the charge into the present and continues to do so into the future.

We can see by Elon Musk’s expression into the world, that he is a theist. If one is to add into that equation the idea that Elon was inspired by something he at first had no idea existed, we can see how it is that the vision of the mindfulness involved is centred upon the bests way to move forward given the circumstances.

This involves (but is not limited to) human settlements on Mars, integration of human brains into non-biological machinery, creating $ to move in that direction and a keen sense of love for human life and its foothold within this simulation, as Elon understands it to be.

While anti-theism has always been an annoyance, it has never successfully and never shall successfully derail The Creator’s (of this simulation) purpose for humans.

Note: The type of antitheism I am speaking of is also that which comes from the religious against other religions. It seeks conflict rather than resolution.

Yes, ok. Obviously, I don't think much of religions against other religions. This is like gang war between cartels about selling their puggle to the users. Atheism is about kicking the habit, and there are no tithes.

Kicking one habit does not kick all habits...

Atheists (whether non-theists of anti theists) pay the piper along with everyone else.

[TRANSPONDER]

Yes. Look I've been around for quite a while and I'm well aware of these moaning minnies who complain about how hard their life is, and they have no idea what an easy and safe life we live compared to how it once was.

I've looked over the cliff of existence when I was in my teens and decided I didn't want to jump, for reasons I understand better now. Since then I knew that existence which offers us (naturally) nothing but extinction, unless we concentrate our minds wonderfully has, thanks to our own efforts (1) we have so much to be thankful for. I have little patience with the constant moaners (and even though the Bible says, light a candle, don't just curse the darkness'.

This life, today and now is a lottery win, and they want to kick it into the gutter because they are too dumb to recognise the value. That's without the religious scammers who teach us that this life is terrible and awful but there is hope in the poke they swear has a pig in it, though we have to wait until we die before we get to look inside.

1) which like the banana has been bred by humans from a subsistence nature to a much better shape and taste.