Also in the news

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

When I said “what works”, I meant what works for society. I imagine laws and morality to have evolved in a sort of Darwinian way. Poor laws and morality will lead to poor outcomes for that society or instabilities that cause them to be changed or overthrown. I believe this is what has happened in practice, and religious law eg. Mosaic law (10 commandments, etc) fits into this quite nicely.

 

Perhaps my view is a little lightweight for the current discussion. My father (deeply religious) would discuss this with you for weeks.

This is sort of what I was getting at on my arguments. The goal of evolution is to adapt to allow groups and species to survive - and human morality is just as subject to that as anything else as evolutionary biology is the key driver of human behaviour and therefore laws and morals that apply for it IMO.

 

As such, while subjective, some "immoral" acts like slavery and murder on a widespread scale will almost always (if not always) have next to no utility when it comes to helping humanity survive long term, and that is a good enough reason for humans across the ages to view then as wrong instinctually. The only measurement needed for such judgements is the one evolutionary biology relies on - human survival of as many people as possible for as long as possible.

[Benguin]

28 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

When I said “what works”, I meant what works for society. I imagine laws and morality to have evolved in a sort of Darwinian way. Poor laws and morality will lead to poor outcomes for that society or instabilities that cause them to be changed or overthrown. I believe this is what has happened in practice, and religious law eg. Mosaic law (10 commandments, etc) fits into this quite nicely.

 

Perhaps my view is a little lightweight for the current discussion. My father (deeply religious) would discuss this with you for weeks.

That's fine but ultimately a concession that objective moral values don't exist and therefore the conclusion that we as the human race have evolved to have morals however these morals are not predicated on good and evil but rather what yeilds the best chance of survival. For me however that worldview is both absurd and incompatible with what I see around me. Moral duties are so much more transcendant and deeper in my opinion. 

[Benguin]

9 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is sort of what I was getting at on my arguments. The goal of evolution is to adapt to allow groups and species to survive - and human morality is just as subject to that as anything else as evolutionary biology is the key driver of human behaviour and therefore laws and morals that apply for it IMO.

 

As such, while subjective, some "immoral" acts like slavery and murder on a widespread scale will almost always (if not always) have next to no utility when it comes to helping humanity survive long term, and that is a good enough reason for humans across the ages to view then as wrong instinctually. The only measurement needed for such judgements is the one evolutionary biology relies on - human survival of as many people as possible for as long as possible.

Would this view apply if we discovered that rape was better for the advancement of our species, or is rape always wrong irregardless? Even if it was proven to be beneficial for our survival? 

[Benguin]

42 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Right, and I'm saying that no one, not even the religious, can (because subjective fallible human interpretation means we can't ever truly know the will of such a cosmic entity, including on morality) and that we humans don't have to (subjective morality driven in large part by our instinct to survive is no different in terms of observable results from such an objective morality when the rules set by both are the same as there is zero empirical proof whatsoever for afterlife judgement).

 

As such, no, objective morality cannot exist so long as human interpretation remains flawed, but then it doesn't need to for humanity to still do things that are "as good" from any human POV anyway.

 

Later.

As a Christian we literally believe that God has revealed his will to us, for us to be in union with him, so we don't need to try and decipher or understand. For me (and this is a different debate) it all rests on who Jesus was. I think that the evidence points to him being the son of God. 

 

Back to the main debate. What is your view then, on objective truth? Surely by your own logic with objective morality, we have to surrender objective truth as well and thus can't know anything for certain. 

[simFox]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

These are all fair points (though anecdotal), however I must say that this includes no reference to the reason BLM began these actions in the first place, viz. the institutionalised negative treatment towards people of colour by the cops in the US which has been so far largely unaddressed despite some very vocal peaceful efforts.

 

Of course, the argument that the message has been lost with everything else that has gone on is salient, but how exactly can that problem be addressed - or if there no problem at all/we should we just leave it be and accept it as collateral of the society we inhabit and humans are always gonna be prejudiced because "reasons" (which I think does seem to be implied here)?

From the BLMUK gofundme page:

We’re guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world. We build deep relationships across the diaspora and strategise to challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world, from Brazil to Britain.

 

Lovely bunch.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Benguin said:

Would this view apply if we discovered that rape was better for the advancement of our species, or is rape always wrong irregardless? Even if it was proven to be beneficial for our survival? 

I think that's covered in the second paragraph. It's highly unlikely (to the point of impossibility) that rape would ever be considered by humans at a instinctual level to be critical to the continuation of human survival - there is no reason how or why long term such coercive acts would result in survival when there would be massive antipathy and conflict between men and women pretty much perpetually, which would inevitably lower birth rates, no matter the amount of control the men might have when such a system began.

 

So, from the evolutionary interest POV, rape will always be wrong, too, so I doubt the question will ever arise.

 

6 minutes ago, Benguin said:

As a Christian we literally believe that God has revealed his will to us, for us to be in union with him, so we don't need to try and decipher or understand. For me (and this is a different debate) it all rests on who Jesus was. I think that the evidence points to him being the son of God. 

 

Back to the main debate. What is your view then, on objective truth? Surely by your own logic with objective morality, we have to surrender objective truth as well and thus can't know anything for certain. 

I think I'll stick to the position of humans purporting to know the will of a god being both highly unlikely and possibly a sign of the sin of pride by that deities own teachings, but that's just my take.

 

And yep, the answer to the second question is just yes. All we have is what we perceive the world as, and acting in a manner that gives the greatest chance of human survival is good enough for me.

 

6 minutes ago, simFox said:

From the BLMUK gofundme page:

We’re guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world. We build deep relationships across the diaspora and strategise to challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world, from Brazil to Britain.

 

Lovely bunch.

I'm sorry, trying to see what this has to do with the original question asked. Some elaboration, please?

 

[Dahnsouff]

Think @simFox  response (Who has the most terrifying avatar on the forum) might not be relevant to your questions @leicsmac / @Benguin

But it is more relevant to the topic....just saying......

 

[Dahnsouff]

19 minutes ago, simFox said:

From the BLMUK gofundme page:

We’re guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world. We build deep relationships across the diaspora and strategise to challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world, from Brazil to Britain.

 

Lovely bunch.

Presumably the group have been running under the BLM banner for a while, it just seems a bit too wide and unfocused, whereas if it were targeted, as the name suggests, it may have more value. 

[WigstonWanderer]

47 minutes ago, Benguin said:

That's fine but ultimately a concession that objective moral values don't exist and therefore the conclusion that we as the human race have evolved to have morals however these morals are not predicated on good and evil but rather what yeilds the best chance of survival. For me however that worldview is both absurd and incompatible with what I see around me. Moral duties are so much more transcendant and deeper in my opinion. 

The same argument is also levelled against Darwinian evolution.

Edited 16 June 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[Benguin]

11 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I think that's covered in the second paragraph. It's highly unlikely (to the point of impossibility) that rape would ever be considered by humans at a instinctual level to be critical to the continuation of human survival - there is no reason how or why long term such coercive acts would result in survival when there would be massive antipathy and conflict between men and women pretty much perpetually, which would inevitably lower birth rates, no matter the amount of control the men might have when such a system began.

 

So, from the evolutionary interest POV, rape will always be wrong, too, so I doubt the question will ever arise.

 

I think I'll stick to the position of humans purporting to know the will of a god being both highly unlikely and possibly a sign of the sin of pride by that deities own teachings, but that's just my take.

 

And yep, the answer to the second question is just yes. All we have is what we perceive the world as, and acting in a manner that gives the greatest chance of human survival is good enough for me.

 

I'm sorry, trying to see what this has to do with the original question asked. Some elaboration, please?

 

First part, that's not the point. I'm asking whether you think rape would be wrong if it was proven to be beneficial. I'm not suggesting rape could be beneficial, given you've surrendered knowledge in your second answer, surely you can entertain a hypothetical scenario to test your belief that morals are for the betterment of humans but not objective?

 

The point is that you made a comment that in my opinion is stealing from a theistic worldview. Slavery was still wrong even when it's illegal. iI've tested your comment against your worldview and you've since rejected the existence of objective morality and admitted you don't know anything for certain. 

 

My hope is that people will see that they don't live according to their worldviews, that people need to steal from a theistic viewpoints for anything they believe to be coherent. Hopefully that will plant the seed that brings them to salvation. 

[simFox]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

 

I'm sorry, trying to see what this has to do with the original question asked. Some elaboration, please?

 

 

You appeared to be saying that BLM's aim was to tackle police brutality against black folk. That isn't even stated on the UKBLM funding page. 

 

Tearing down state structures and white supremacy has a whiff of anarchy about it and is not something I will support. 

[Captain...]

26 minutes ago, simFox said:

 

You appeared to be saying that BLM's aim was to tackle police brutality against black folk. That isn't even stated on the UKBLM funding page. 

 

Tearing down state structures and white supremacy has a whiff of anarchy about it and is not something I will support. 

I think there needs to be a distinction between BLMUK and the global BLM movement. 99% of the people using the hashtag or going to the protests are going simply in support of the simple message Black Lives Matter. Most are not aware of or don't fully support all the stated aims of BLMUK or even the original BLM group in the US, but most will support the main message which is an end to the continuous use of excessive and lethal force by white police officers against unarmed black men.

 

That is something that we can hopefully all agree on.

 

There might be a fringe extreme element to BLM and BLMUK, but this has become a mainstream global movement that basically stands for an end to racism and justice for the victims of racism. I hope we can all agree on that too.

 

Focussing on extreme views that existed before the recent global movement is not right as the movement has quickly moved away from that.

[Milo]

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-53060894

 

 

Racist breakfast cereal.

 

She seems to be making an entirely rational, well thought out and convincing argument. 

 

 

I'm off to clear out my kitchen cupboards which are clearly a haven of bigotry and prejudice.

 

  

 

[Izzy]

5 minutes ago, Milo said:

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-53060894

 

 

Racist breakfast cereal.

 

She seems to be making an entirely rational, well thought out and convincing argument. 

 

 

I'm off to clear out my kitchen cupboards which are clearly a haven of bigotry and prejudice.

 

Jesus wept

[StanSP]

She gives a bad name to 'the left'. 

[Milo]

Willie Thorne placed into induced coma.

 

Doesn't sound good.  

[StanSP]

 

 

 

 

 

How many others were like this, instigating a race war? A military man literally killed a cop to make it look like a black person did it during the BLM protests. Crazy motherfvcker!

[Dahnsouff]

11 minutes ago, StanSP said:

How many others were like this, instigating a race war? A military man literally killed a cop to make it look like a black person did it during the BLM protests. Crazy motherfvcker!

You do have to wonder, it’s an obvious choice I guess. Assuming you want to create a national race war of course. 

[leicsmac]

8 hours ago, Benguin said:

First part, that's not the point. I'm asking whether you think rape would be wrong if it was proven to be beneficial. I'm not suggesting rape could be beneficial, given you've surrendered knowledge in your second answer, surely you can entertain a hypothetical scenario to test your belief that morals are for the betterment of humans but not objective?

 

The point is that you made a comment that in my opinion is stealing from a theistic worldview. Slavery was still wrong even when it's illegal. iI've tested your comment against your worldview and you've since rejected the existence of objective morality and admitted you don't know anything for certain. 

 

My hope is that people will see that they don't live according to their worldviews, that people need to steal from a theistic viewpoints for anything they believe to be coherent. Hopefully that will plant the seed that brings them to salvation. 

I'm sorry, but for me that's a reducto ad absurdum - it's theoretically possible given the subjectivity of human morality to suggest it, but it's so unlikely that rape will ever be beneficial to human survival (and thus human moral motivation as I see it) that it isn't really worthy of discussion. It's a hypothetical so unlikely that it belongs in the field of the purely speculative.

 

I'm curious to know what exactly gives theistic thought the right to "own" a worldview if someone who is not pious comes up with the same moral ideas separately? Is it because it got written down in a book a while back first so it's automatically "their" idea in perpetuity, even though the understanding of morality in that worldview in both cases will be of the same human origin (even if it does turn out some divinity is involved somewhere)?

 

At the risk of being blunt, theists don't have some exclusive "rights" to a belief on morality that's somehow elevated (call it objective if you will but it's just the same human interpretation to me) and it would be nice for you to stop pretending that they do in the name of proselytisation ("planting the seed that brings them to salvation") - without qualifying that that is only your opinion on the matter, anyway.

 

I'll say again, just to be clear - human morals derived from our desire to survive long term are equally valuable as human interpretation of "moral codes" supposedly given by a deity - they are both subjective because humans are involved and they both have similar outcomes in terms of good acts done in the absence of any evidence of an afterlife. If there is somehow some special hotline to a deity that shows exactly whatever its will might be and somehow humans know it perfectly and it can be proven to be infallible and not some limited human interpretation, then please, prove it.

 

7 hours ago, simFox said:

 

You appeared to be saying that BLM's aim was to tackle police brutality against black folk. That isn't even stated on the UKBLM funding page. 

 

Tearing down state structures and white supremacy has a whiff of anarchy about it and is not something I will support. 

Ah, I see - thank you for the clarification!

 

In that case, Cap above has said pretty much what I wanted to say in response.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53073526

 

Has no one in this administration heard of the Streisand Effect?

[Benguin]

4 hours ago, leicsmac said:

I'm sorry, but for me that's a reducto ad absurdum - it's theoretically possible given the subjectivity of human morality to suggest it, but it's so unlikely that rape will ever be beneficial to human survival (and thus human moral motivation as I see it) that it isn't really worthy of discussion. It's a hypothetical so unlikely that it belongs in the field of the purely speculative.

 

I'm curious to know what exactly gives theistic thought the right to "own" a worldview if someone who is not pious comes up with the same moral ideas separately? Is it because it got written down in a book a while back first so it's automatically "their" idea in perpetuity, even though the understanding of morality in that worldview in both cases will be of the same human origin (even if it does turn out some divinity is involved somewhere)?

 

At the risk of being blunt, theists don't have some exclusive "rights" to a belief on morality that's somehow elevated (call it objective if you will but it's just the same human interpretation to me) and it would be nice for you to stop pretending that they do in the name of proselytisation ("planting the seed that brings them to salvation") - without qualifying that that is only your opinion on the matter, anyway.

 

I'll say again, just to be clear - human morals derived from our desire to survive long term are equally valuable as human interpretation of "moral codes" supposedly given by a deity - they are both subjective because humans are involved and they both have similar outcomes in terms of good acts done in the absence of any evidence of an afterlife. If there is somehow some special hotline to a deity that shows exactly whatever its will might be and somehow humans know it perfectly and it can be proven to be infallible and not some limited human interpretation, then please, prove it.

 

Ah, I see - thank you for the clarification!

 

In that case, Cap above has said pretty much what I wanted to say in response.

 

 

This is not about ownership of anything but rather whether what we say is consistent with what we believe. In your case, what you originally said, requires a different worldview to be logically coherent. In other words, what you said doesn't hold up to what you believe. 

 

In our debate on theology, you have admitted that you don't know anything for certain and that morality is purely a mechanism for our survival, there is no such thing as good and evil but rather there are things that are harmful to us as a species, in the long run. 

 

Your original comment "slavery was always wrong" in your worldview becomes " I don't think slavery has ever been useful for the continuation of our species but I don't know for certain."

 

Your own belief is that the foundation for moral values isn't on what is good and evil but rather what is best or worst for our longetivity as a species. But you (at least when not debating theology) live in a world where you apply the principal of good and evil rather than the latter. 

 

I don't think the value statement is quite right it should be "if morals are derived from etc than they would be just as valuable as if they were given by a deity." you can only speculate the origin of morals, so can't make a truth claim that morals derived from evolution are valuable when you dont know for sure that that's where they derived from. 

 

 

 

 

[Gordon the Great]

On 15/06/2020 at 12:18, Footballwipe said:

I see the racist apologists are out defending him under the tweet and saying it's a ridiculous sentence. Maybe the least surprising response, and shows that you really can be absolved by some people so long as you agree with their extreme ideologies.

It is a ridiculous sentence, should have been at least 2 years.

[Thefox81]

Matt Hancock thanks 'Daniel' Rashford for his hard work 😂

Edited 17 June 2020 by Thefox81

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Benguin said:

 

 

This is not about ownership of anything but rather whether what we say is consistent with what we believe. In your case, what you originally said, requires a different worldview to be logically coherent. In other words, what you said doesn't hold up to what you believe. 

 

In our debate on theology, you have admitted that you don't know anything for certain and that morality is purely a mechanism for our survival, there is no such thing as good and evil but rather there are things that are harmful to us as a species, in the long run. 

 

Your original comment "slavery was always wrong" in your worldview becomes " I don't think slavery has ever been useful for the continuation of our species but I don't know for certain."

 

Your own belief is that the foundation for moral values isn't on what is good and evil but rather what is best or worst for our longetivity as a species. But you (at least when not debating theology) live in a world where you apply the principal of good and evil rather than the latter. 

 

I don't think the value statement is quite right it should be "if morals are derived from etc than they would be just as valuable as if they were given by a deity." you can only speculate the origin of morals, so can't make a truth claim that morals derived from evolution are valuable when you dont know for sure that that's where they derived from. 

 

 

 

 

Evidently I'm either not being clear or we're talking past each other, though it's an interesting topic.

 

To give it another go: I think that good and evil moral acts are tied up in our evolutionary instinct to survive and I can and will label acts based on that code as such. I am not certain on this, but IMO that is no different from any other moral structure that humans have, even one based on religion, so none of them can claim access to an objective morality code.

 

As such, I claim - and in the absence of contavening evidence I think I am correct - that moral structure is just as valuable as any other.

 

I think we both have our rather intransigent worldviews based on this though so I think I'll leave it there before things get circular. Can't say that I'll ever buy into the idea of a deity as the Abrahamic religions depict it, but I certainly respect your right to think that way. Enjoy your day!

[StanSP]

Another incident with a white police officer and black man...