I would rather live my life as if there is a God

[the caracal kid]

if you kill that person because you disagree with that person's actions you are no different than that person who would blow up a building.

consider that. justification is in the eyes of the beholder.

What stops people from blowing things up is allowing for people to acomplish their goals/dreams/etc. You do not stop bombers by killing ones that have already bombed. All you do there is kill one more person and potentially create a martyr for others that are oppressed.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

So someone who sets a bomb off in a crowded shopping mall during christmas rush just for fun should not be killed.

Why?

What stops another deranged individual from doing the same?

If there is no religious reason, what reason is there to keep that person alive?

seems that the bush fear tactics about terrorism has really gotten to ya. When all you can think about is bombs being set off .......by some misfits of society........then these same misfits have won this "battle " hands down.

If you want to be controlled by fear tactics........that is your choice.

If they are suicide bombers.......they dealt their own punishment. Moot point. If they set up a remote "bomb' ....and are caught.......then life in prison following a proper /civilized trial is in order. Why reduce yourself to their level??

Why keep them alive?? many reasons. They are humans too.....and because of their fanaticism would make excellent subjects for psychological studies /research. The better we understand these kind of people , the better equipped we will be to deal with them appropriately. Warring at them......is simply buying into what they want. Bush makes these misfits of society very happy.....and you can take that to the bank. They know exactly which buttons to push with america and bush......and get exactly the results they expect. And btw.......these zealots usually have heavy involvement /committment to "religious " ideologies too.

 

[iamcanadian]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

if you kill that person because you disagree with that person's actions you are no different than that person who would blow up a building.

consider that. justification is in the eyes of the beholder.

What stops people from blowing things up is allowing for people to acomplish their goals/dreams/etc. You do not stop bombers by killing ones that have already bombed. All you do there is kill one more person and potentially create a martyr for others that are oppressed.

Why should anyone care. The premis is that there is no religion and no god. Only laws made by men. Man can say all people that kill will be killed as a law.

They excecute government officials for nominal value corruption in some countrie when in Canada they get speaking engagements as punishement for stealing millions.

In Saudi Arabia they cut off a thiefs hands. No one steals anything there. You can leave a a million dollars in gold jewelry on a carpet on a crowded street corner to get a coffee and nothing will be missing when you get back.

It obvioulsy works quite well. If there is no Religion and no God, whats wrong with doing this?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

It obvioulsy works quite well. If there is no Religion and no God, whats wrong with doing this?

it all depends on the culture. What is acceptable and "law" in one is not necessarily in another. We might be appalled at the hand cutting.........but to them.......they are used to it. It all depends on where one grows up.........so passing a moral/value judgement is not the way to go.........at anytime for that matter.

The fact remains that these same cultures ARE religious. Go figure..... seems they have separated their religious beliefs/customs from their law and order. That is THEIR way.

Just because it makes little sense to us.......does not mean it is the same to them. What we do must be rather perplexing to them as well.

 

[the caracal kid]

what you are really asking is if it is preferable to be barbaric creatures or compassionate creatures.

yes, they are arbitrary man-made laws (all of them). However, do you consider what it is like to be at the receiving end of a harsh law? It is in fairness to all that society can advance. All laws are more a measure of the lawmakers than those whom the law is imposed upon. Fear is no way to govern.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

what you are really asking is if it is preferable to be barbaric creatures or compassionate creatures.

yes, they are arbitrary man-made laws (all of them). However, do you consider what it is like to be at the receiving end of a harsh law? It is in fairness to all that society can advance. All laws are more a measure of the lawmakers than those whom the law is imposed upon. Fear is no way to govern.

I agree, as would many in western societies and elsewhere.....but there are societies that simply have not evolved beyond that .......yet........(no matter how wealthy they are in resources etc. then again......there are the impoverished societies where barebones survival is the focus. We simply should not/cannot measure things by our standards.... (IMHO)

 

[iamcanadian]

Ocean and Caracal, you are both very religious people and are religious in the Christian culture.

You denounce God and Religion as something bad or outside of your beliefs, yet demonstrate that you have ingrained in you values that only came from Christianity.

It did not come from science or reason, because with only science or logical reasoning, there is no reason to be merciful or compasionate.

The law preceeding Christianity was an eye for an eye and the cultures that did not practice this faith all maintained some version of the eye for eye in their laws and practices.

You are both Christians.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

Ocean and Caracal, you are both very religious people and are religious in the Christian culture.

You denounce God and Religion as something bad or outside of your beliefs, yet demonstrate that you have ingrained in you values that only came from Christianity.

It did not come from science or reason, because with only science or logical reasoning, there is no reason to be merciful or compasionate.

The law preceeding Christianity was an eye for an eye and the cultures that did not practice this faith all maintained some version of the eye for eye in their laws and practices.

You are both Christians.

I will THANK YOU not to make any shagging assumptions about my beliefs or lack of. You are intruding on personal territory and that is out of line. It is absolutely NONE of your business. Get a little class, will ya...

Happy holidays...or whatever it is you "celebrate" this time of year.

Midwinters' celebration ....is just fine by YT.

 

[the caracal kid]

i am with you Ocean.

It is beyond rediculous to claim i am christian becuase i am rational. I can say i would not want to be harshly treated, so i will not harshly treat another.

If you (IMC) only knew how disgusting i find christianity you would realize what a joke you just made. I do not condone the use of fear, the use of tyrany, etc, which is exactly what the abrahamic god of war does. It is YOU that is demonstating these religious attitudes, not I.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

Ocean and Caracal, you are both very religious people and are religious in the Christian culture.

You denounce God and Religion as something bad or outside of your beliefs, yet demonstrate that you have ingrained in you values that only came from Christianity.

It did not come from science or reason, because with only science or logical reasoning, there is no reason to be merciful or compasionate.

The law preceeding Christianity was an eye for an eye and the cultures that did not practice this faith all maintained some version of the eye for eye in their laws and practices.

You are both Christians.

What a load of tripe. Your ignorance of science and reason is massive, your arrogance in telling people what they believe is breathtaking, and your implicit assumption that science and reason on the one hand and religion on the other are the only sources of values is just plain wrong. I presume you are very young and inexperienced, as that's the only thing that'd excuse that post.

 

[zenfisher]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

.

So why should a few innocent deaths matter if the majority will be properly punished for the crimes they commit?

So if you, IAC, were wrongly convicted of a crime in which the death penalty was imposed... Would feel the state is justified in killing you?

You still haven't answered the question.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Interesting how a thread that starts out with a weak restatement of Pascal's Wager turns into a discussion about capital punishment. There are some devious minds around here.

Bottom line on that issue for me is this: the only possible justification for capital punishment I can see is to rid society of dangerous people, but as long as the risk of wrongful conviction is not zero, a compassionate and reasonable society cannot do it. I'm not prepared to kill another person, except in response to an immediate and palpable threat to my own life or the lives of people I care about, and I will not give the state permission to do it on my behalf.

Lock up the dangerous offenders until they die of natural causes, I'll cheerfully pay the taxes to support that to avoid all possibility of the state killing an innocent person. The legal process that results in finding someone guilty is human-designed and thus fallible, and we must always allow for the possibility that we may be wrong. There's no way back from capital punishment, no way to make restitution if we get it wrong, and if we get it wrong even once, we have failed to be a civilized and humane nation; we will be a nation that murders its own citizens.

 

[Summer]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

Ocean and Caracal, you are both very religious people and are religious in the Christian culture.

You denounce God and Religion as something bad or outside of your beliefs, yet demonstrate that you have ingrained in you values that only came from Christianity.

It did not come from science or reason, because with only science or logical reasoning, there is no reason to be merciful or compasionate.

The law preceeding Christianity was an eye for an eye and the cultures that did not practice this faith all maintained some version of the eye for eye in their laws and practices.

You are both Christians.

You're nutz.

 

[iamcanadian]

Each of the people here who professed not being religious holds the view that people should not be excecuted. Where did you get this idea?

It does not come from logic or reason and it has nothing to do with some theory that it is good for society to lock people up vs putting them to sleep.

It can only come from the Christian Religion, and it IS an issue of FAITH handed down from some BEING, because the other major religions profess eye for an eye (and excecution) type punishement in response to many anti-social activities.

No amount of rationalizing can justify locking people up for life (or even a long time) at great cost and litle (or no) deterent.

You speak of valueing human life, yet the same money spent on keeping someone in prison, would save the lives of thousands of people in many parts of the world who did nothing wrong and simply die for lack of food or medicines and mostly children who given the chance would become good and valuable members of any society.

 

[Summer]

Re: RE: I would rather live my life as if there is a God

Each of the people here who professed not being religious holds the view that people should not be excecuted. Where did you get this idea?

Common sense, for most of us, and for some, personal philosophy.

It does not come from logic or reason and it has nothing to do with some theory that it is good for society to lock people up vs putting them to sleep.

Sure it does.

It can only come from the Christian Religion, and it IS an issue of FAITH handed down from some BEING, because the other major religions profess eye for an eye (and excecution) type punishement in response to many anti-social activities.

Bull. The problem here is that you apparently don't know much about any other religions (or about rational thought systems) so you think that everything comes from Christianity if it even so much as has 1% similarity to anything that Christians would agree with. I've run into people like that before, and you are as wrong as they are.

No amount of rationalizing can justify locking people up for life (or even a long time) at great cost and litle (or no) deterent.

Just because you're incapable of reaching that conclusion doesn't mean others can't reach it.

You speak of valueing human life, yet the same money spent on keeping someone in prison, would save the lives of thousands of people in many parts of the world who did nothing wrong and simply die for lack of food or medicines and mostly children who given the chance would become good and valuable members of any society.

Hey, so would the money you spend to access the internet. If you feel so strongly about it, should you even be here?

 

[iamcanadian]

When your faith is questioned you get hostile.

Your reject your god and your religion yet hold its concepts and theories to heart.

You don't want to kill evil people but you don't understand why you have this ingrained in your head.

You are acting on the religious faith that you have but rebel against the notion that it comes from a god. In fact from the specific teachings attributed to Jesus Christ alone.

 

[Summer]

RE: I would rather live m

Hardly. The problem here is that you want everyone else to agree with you, and you aren't willing to look at anything said by anyone else as being worth anything. What we post is ignored by you.

Tell ya what: I'm going to give this thread an hour to become something other than this endless circle with you just telling everyone else what they believe. If it doesn't, I'm going to lock it, because this is getting tiresome.

 

[Jay]

Your kidding right?

 

[Summer]

RE: I would rather live m

Jay, it's getting like that thread of Hogwild's, and after 19 pages of this circular crap, I'm getting tired of it. Too much opportunity for trouble, which I have to watch for....

On the other hand, if you can help take it in a useful direction then there won't be a problem. So have at it.

 

[Jay]

I try not to discuss religion around here to much. It's something I think important and worthy of the respect it isn't going to get.

I just thought it was strange you would lock this thread when it seemed to me rather tame. I do read it though.....Just my two cents.