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3/6/09 Responses to Lies and Love, Part 1

By Flak | Comments: 42

Responses to responses to my recent ramblings.

There will be more posts in this series later on; I’ve been mulling things over in several fields. These range from new ideas for government to revolutionizing how responding to blog posts works. Yeeeah, I’m too jack-of-all, master-of-none. :( Ah well, the quintessential liberal college student, as KCG dubbed me on Facebook, plows along.

Anyway! Four of you said some good things in response to Lies and Love, Part 1, and so I’m going to try to say some things to answer you.

@Alar & Karamazov:

Karamazov hit my nails on the head here, pretty much.

1. My first instinct is “restrain C.” (This saves B.) Once C is restrained, you ascertain whether or not you can ever hope to fix C to the point where C can function in society. If not, you ascertain what value jailing C has for anyone who cares about it. If that value is sufficiently low (and it will probably be 0), you off C.

This is harsh and may seem inhumane, but I intend to go more in-depth with this in a later post. I’m not sure if the above is my “final solution” or not; the issue of people without rationality is always a big problem, and I don’t believe it’s one our current society handles well either. If someone can only exist by spending the rest of his life in a padded cell, is it worth preserving that life? In some cases, that person will be more miserable than a vegetable, in some cases, that person will be entertained by his thoughts and quite content. It’s hard to judge. Eh. Yeah. More on this later.

2. As Karamazov guessed, I am hoping for a background in education. A change from our current world to a world in which everyone is educated doesn’t happen instantly. There would of course be a rough transition period. Er, rough compared to the end state. It wouldn’t actually be a rough period compared to our current state.

As the transition occurs, there will be people who don’t want to be part of it. Leave those people to their own devices; eventually their ilk will die out. By “die out” I mean their voices would be drowned. Part of my self-righteousness in believing in education is that I think that someone who has learned about love and cooperation and all that stuff is not going to “defect.” So ignore the stubborn ones, spread the love, and eventually you just have a lot of love. What are the stubborn ones going to do?

The key thing here is to stress that this isn’t asking someone to change. It’s like Plato’s Noble Lie only without a dumb story; you’re raising the “next generation” to be better than that before it.

3. No answer to this yet. That’s a purely ideological question that I’m not sure will ever have a solid answer from me, but I’ll think on it and try to incorporate it into a future post. I know that I used to think that I would rather myself die than any person P at any time Q. But uh, people die. Lots of them. All the time. Should I become a suicide in futile protest against nature? In some cases, dying to save someone else is a good decision I think. In some, it’s not. Exactly why it is in some, and not in others, I do not know.

@Ghoul King:

The key thing to me is what course of action minimizes suffering in the aggregate. Does not killing a person mean they can/will continue to bring harm to others in the future? Maybe you peacefully resolve the issue between these two people with no bloodshed at all, but does this address the issue that led to this problem in the first place? Have you insured a repeat of the incident won’t happen again?

You have not, if all you have done is what I mentioned in my first post (which dealt with only the immediate). But of course you would. Treating only symptoms is not a very educated thing to do. You find a way to fix the problem in a civil, peaceful, cooperative way, unless one or more parties belong to that group of people that is incorrigibly irrational, in which case you restrain that party(ies) and check your policy on mental patients.

Of course, my example assumes there are no other consequences of merit for killing the man. If, for instance, there are political repercussions that could lead to war for killing him, that’s even worse than a few dozen people dying.

I’m not 100% on this answer, and that’s not my way of copping out—I just don’t know for sure yet. But I’d say that sometimes, sacrifices are necessary, as demanded by misfortune. By offing the man with the bomb, you’re essentially saying “our morals are only in effect some of the time.” It weakens your position, it encourages more opposers, etc.

Furthermore if the man is holding people hostage, he probably wants something. You can cave to his demands (or even lie to make him think you’re caving), rescue the people, and then later on capture the guy for “education” or, failing that, holding/labor.

Yeaaaah I dunno for sure. In general I’m with you on the minimize aggregate suffering, but minimize it in the long-run. Maybe saving those dozens of people will endanger thousands later—as you said, by war, or by more bombings, etc.

@KingCrazyGenius:

in fact relationships are what we were created for to begin with.

Not to go on too much of a Genesisean tangent, but really? I didn’t pick that up at all in the creation story. Are you getting that from somewhere in the New Testament? (I’m not disagreeing per se, I’m just wondering what your source is.)

As to where you got the idea that loving someone else more than yourself is somehow wrong, you just leave me baffled.

Sorry if it wasn’t clear, but that was from Augustine. A large part of my post was a reaction to that idea. I think it’s utter bullshit, and I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one.

As for fairness, that is a rather terrible standard to hold. Fairness means we only get what we deserve. Fairness removes the possibility of love and kindness, since you are only receiving things that you earned. Fairness means babies starve to death, because they can’t earn their own food. Fairness means we all are judged for our sins and sent to Hell.

You deserve love and kindness because you give love and kindness. Babies receive food because they bring joy and hope for the future. As for being judged for sins, yeah? That’s one of my big problems with hell :P

Nor do I see a connection between fairness and equality. Is it fair to give equal pay for unequal work? Is it fair to force people to support those who cannot support themselves?

Equality is “looking both right and left” (I think that’s a phrase used often in the Bible), essentially, dealing equally with both sides of an issue or conflict. Judging fairly. Fairly => Fair => Fairness. I think the connection is pretty obvious, what’s your disconnect?

Equal pay for unequal work is not equality. Or fair.

Forcing people to support those who cannot support themselves can be fair given the right system of rewards, because you can (almost always) balance scales. If you’re talking about old people, so long as they’re enjoying life/providing some value to others, I feel they should be supported. Same as how babies should be supported for the future, old people should be supported for the past. They’ve earned their rest, and there’s no need to off them prematurely unless they’re suffering.

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  1. The New Testament demonstrates it more obviously, yes, but reading the Old Testament should lead one to the same conclusion as well. One could see the entire Bible as the story of the reconciliation between God and humanity, although unlike human reconciliations this is one where one party (God) is blameless. Ecclesiastes in particular goes into depth about the emptiness that valuing the creation over the Creator leads to.

    As for your problem with Hell, would you be happier if God ignored injustice entirely? Should tyrants and mobsters and pedophiles be rewarded for their deeds? Hell is a punishment, yes, but in the same sense that falling down and breaking your neck is a punishment for jumping off a cliff. Both are natural consequences of one’s own choices. Hell is where people are forever separated from God, because they spent their entire lives on Earth spurning and ignoring him. And they have only themselves to blame for it. I don’t know what anyone is truly like on the inside, but God does, so his judgments are just.

    Now on to the rest that you replied to:

    So how does one determine these values? How much food and nurturing is hope and joy worth? Is there a point at which the aggravation a child can produce overrides the joy and hope and thus justifies killing them? What about an old man who provides absolutely nothing, but is not in any pain? How much does these things weigh, and how much can the bad outweigh the good before offing them is an acceptable course of action?

    I’m not so much disagreeing with your conclusions (though I don’t support euthanasia), but I can’t agree with the process behind these conclusions. It seems to be that you are treating people as a means to an end, that end being some manner of good feeling. If I am seeing it correctly, your morality is based entirely on how things make people feel, and is thus a wishy-washy system that literally changes on a whim. I, on the other hand, see people as an end in of themselves. People matter because they are people, made in the image of God, who is of course of infinite value. People have an intrinsic value, no matter how good or bad one or the other may make us feel.

    Of course maybe I am reading you wrong.

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/6/09 @ 9:32 am | #Link |

  2. I’m not going to read the entire post, nor the entirety of KCG’s response, due to pressing issues of laziness.

    But “Love your neighbor as yourself is a minimum, not a maximum,” as KCG said last post, is spot on in my book. Just adding some more spit on Augustine’s grave (apparently).

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    Karamazov — 3/6/09 @ 3:31 pm | #Link |

  3. @KingCrazyGenius: My primary problem with hell isn’t that fact that people who do bad things are punished (more bad than good, in this case, as everyone does bad things), but the fact that it is ETERNAL punishment. They have one chance to do things right, that being a life that is insignificantly short compared to the infinity that stretches before them in the afterlife. If there were some way to make amends for their actions, albeit slowly and with a lot of work, then I wouldn’t see much problem with it. That isn’t the case, however. Once you die, you’re completely and utterly fucked. There is no escape. There is no return. Go straight to Hell, do not pass God. You. Are. Damned.

    It is my opinion that everyone should have a chance to make up for their actions, even if they’re too stupid to do so in life. I would think this would be even more important to you, considering every person has “intrinsic value, regardless of being good or bad”. I fail to understand how anyone can agree with such a flawed system.

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    Alar — 3/6/09 @ 6:52 pm | #Link |

  4. Karamazov: Ooh, nice job on the vengeance.

    Alar: There is a way to get away from it. When Jesus died on the cross, he became a substitute for us; he took the punishment that we deserve. It is impossible for us to work our way to God’s favor; there is no amount of good deeds or “merit” that can outweigh our sin, but through Jesus we can freely receive forgiveness and thus have assurance that there will be a place for us in Heaven. By putting our trust in Jesus, our sins (past, present, and future) are wiped clean, and we receive God’s mercy (he withholds the punishment we deserve) as well as God’s grace (he gives us the forgiveness and eternal life with him that we don’t deserve).

    It is unfortunate that people reject God’s simple truth for their own complicated lies.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/7/09 @ 4:32 am | #Link |

  5. I don’t really see how killing bomb-man says ‘our morals are only in effect some of the time’. If our morals are ‘killing is bad’, sure, yes, but my own ‘morals’ are not hard-and-fast rules about what is unacceptable and what is required. I look for the best solution possible, not the one that’s consistent with some abstract code. It’s not so much that it is a Bad Thing to kill someone as it is a sub-optimal solution in most situations. I’m only weakening my moral high ground if I insist that killing as a bad thing except when I say it isn’t, in which case I’m being inconsistent.

    I know most systems of morality employ simple, often contradictory, rules of what is Right and what is Wrong, but that doesn’t mean every system has to be that way, and I would honestly expect an idealized, everyone-is-educated-and-stuff type of society to approach morality in an intelligent and responsive manner, not a ‘well, the rules say…’ type of manner. You’re only weakening your position if you’re contradicting it, and you don’t contradict yourself by looking for the optimal solution in each circumstance on a case-by-case basis looking at all the factors involved and coming up with different solutions for different situations.

    @KCG: That’s, um, utterly horrifying on many levels, but I get the impression Alar’s concern is the part where once you’re in Hell you’re screwed, and none of that addresses that aspect.

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    Ghoul King — 3/7/09 @ 5:58 am | #Link |

  6. GK: Sometimes things have long term consequences. In the case of rejecting God, the long term is eternally long. I don’t know if Hell is actually a cosmic furnace or not (I’ve heard decent arguments from both sides of the issue), but I do know that Hell is separation from God, chosen by those who want to be separated from God. People’s ignorance about what absolute separation from God entails doesn’t excuse them from their choice.

    I personally have no issue reconciling an all-loving God with an eternal Hell.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/7/09 @ 6:56 am | #Link |

  7. I find eternal anything a laughable concept.

    One thing that always bugs me: you can’t seem to make up your mind about whether Hell is people getting exactly what they want or Hell is people suffering for their mistakes.

    I personally have difficulty with the whole system you describe because it tells me that Hitler is in Heaven and Ghandhi is in Hell. You say God does justice, you say he’s all-loving, and you say he does things that are the exact opposite of both. I have some difficulty believing something that contradicts itself so fundamentally and constantly.

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    Ghoul King — 3/7/09 @ 7:24 am | #Link |

  8. Not mistakes, intentional transgressions against the creator and lord of all the universe.

    There is no contradiction. According to God’s perfect justice, not one of us should end up in Heaven. However, God offers his mercy and grace to those who believe and repent. We don’t get to make the rules about how these things work.

    As for Hitler, I somehow doubt he ever truly believed and repented. Chances are any Christian trappings he ever had were purely cultural. But only God knows for certain.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/7/09 @ 8:43 am | #Link |

  9. So you’ve just admitted that someone who starts a global war and orders the torture and execution of millions of people can enter Heaven if he believes and repents. And in the meantime, someone who prevents and alleviates suffering will go to eternal Hell if he refuses to accept that Jesus is the son of God. Fucked up. Repentance I can see, but why should belief in God be the deciding factor?

    In order for this to be anything like a just system, God should be willing to forgive the ’sin’ of not believing in him. As far as I know, the only case where he is supposed to have done this is with the Roman Emperor Trajan, and the pope who prayed to get him into heaven had to trade his bodily health for the favor in some versions of the story.

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    Karamazov — 3/7/09 @ 1:56 pm | #Link |

  10. From my history reading just now:

    “Anyone who does not believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the consubstantial and life-giving Trinity within a unity, is spiritually blind and deserving of eternal punishment.”

    -Peter of Maiouma, quoted in Theophanes’ Chronographia

    He also called ‘Mouamed’ (Mohammed) “false prophet and precursor to the Antichrist” – his Muslim friends gave him the benfit of the doubt since he was sick, but killed him when he got better and coninued ranting. FYI.

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    Karamazov — 3/7/09 @ 8:01 pm | #Link |

  11. The problem with your reasoning is that you fail to see what a grievous sin that rejection of God is. It is the most selfish, ungrateful, and treasonous thing a human being can do to reject his or her creator. It is the worst sin that can be committed. And it is something all humans have been guilty of, or are still guilty of, Hitler and Ghandi included.

    As for forgiving the sin of unbelief, what good would it do? The sinner in question still wants nothing to do with God (at best they seek some twisted idea of God), and so God gives them what they want and sends them to Hell.

    And yeah, Mohamed is a false prophet.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/8/09 @ 11:55 am | #Link |

  12. I have to say, rejecting one’s creator is certainly lower down on my list of crimes than murdering millions of my fellow men. I believe far greater spiritual and societal good can come from an atheist than from a mass murderer. If God punishes those who don’t worship him, then apparently he created us to soothe his ego; if he wasn’t “a jealous God” he wouldn’t consider the sin of rejection so grievious. And believing in God solely to avoid his potential wrath – which is the only logical reason I have to worship him – is a sacrifice of my morals: I will not play with the truth to avoid possible punishment.

    As for forgiving the sin of unbelief, the idea that nonbelievers ‘want’ Hell is ludicrous. They don’t want anything to do with Satan or Hell any more than they want anything to do with God or Heaven. Nonetheless, faced with a choice in the afterlife (having discovered that it was real), I’m certain most of us would prefer Heaven. If God does not forgive nonbelievers, it isn’t because they don’t want it, it’s because he truly hates them. In which case see first paragraph.

    Final argument, of course, being that it’s totally ludicrous to think that God is the creator of all when there are hundreds of deities whose worshippers have claimed that position for him.

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    Karamazov — 3/8/09 @ 4:00 pm | #Link |

  13. Define good.

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/8/09 @ 5:08 pm | #Link |

  14. Stupid lack of editing.

    Disregard my previous post, and replace it with something along the lines of this:

    Sorry you feel that way, but I’ve had my fill of arguing with you. I only wanted to reply to Flak. However, if you really are looking for answers, I’m sure even Berkeley has a Campus Crusade ministry. The people there will no doubt be better equipped and certainly more willing to go back and forth with you on this than I am.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/8/09 @ 5:19 pm | #Link |

  15. Oh, and to show you that I really do mean I don’t feel like carrying this on and that you just didn’t stump me or anything, I’ll reply anyways.

    Murder is ultimately another way of showing contempt for the creator, since humans are created in the image of God. You say more good can come of an atheist than from a mass murderer, but this means absolutely nothing. All sin stems from the same source: a refusal to recognize and heed God as the sole authority. And what exactly is your standard of good? If it is based on your own opinions, then you are an arrogant fool for thinking you alone have the answer no one else has ever come up with. If it is based on what the majority approves of, then good changes meaning with every generation and thus clinging to it is a pointless endeavor.

    I don’t know any Christians who worship God out of fear of being punished for doing otherwise. We worship God because he is worthy of it. He created us all and the universe we live in, providing for us everything we have. If you are thankful to a parent for buying you something nice on your birthday, imagine how much more grateful you should be to the God who gave you your life, who gave you the parent who bought you the gift, you gave you the mind and senses necessary to comprehend and enjoy the gift. Only those who reject God have any reason to fear his judgment.

    Anyone who is not for God is against him. There are no gray areas to pick and choose from. You can’t reject the source of all goodness and joy and expect there to be a nice alternative awaiting you. As for people choosing Heaven if they knew for sure, why don’t they know? I certainly know, what is stopping you? Actually you do know now, because I’ve told you. Your choice to reject the truth is your choice to reject God and Heaven and embrace an eternity of sorrow.

    Yes, there are many false gods and idols out there, and only one true God.

    And now I am ending this particular conversation, because I don’t see any good coming of it. Neither you nor Ghoul King seem at all interested in actually learning about God or having your questions answered. Whether you are looking to stoke your ego by winning an argument with me, or you just enjoy verbal sparring, or something else, I won’t be a part of it.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/8/09 @ 5:42 pm | #Link |

  16. This is not a subject I enjoy ’sparring’ over, as both parties are invariably so invested in their points of view that it never leads anywhere. I still can’t help joining in once in a while because I am puzzled as to how how someone can believe that any evidence for God exists, and that by saying his name you can “show me the truth”. What puzzles me most is the total blindness to the fact that Christianity is simply one sect among thousands that have existed, each one claiming that their divine powers are either the only ones or the most powerful among many (The Bible claims both). Step outside of yourself and you have to wonder: if all those people are just as convinced as you are that their religion is correct… what makes your conviction true?

    On that note, goodbye. Although if someone who is capable of not mixing religion into eveything wants to respond to the ORIGINAL discussion, I suppose I could join in again.

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    Karamazov — 3/8/09 @ 7:59 pm | #Link |

  17. First of all, most people who claim a certain religion or faith are usually just into it culturally. Second of all, it isn’t as though I grew up in a Christian household and have never known anything else. I’ve explored dozens of belief systems growing up, but in the end Christianity is the only one that never left me unsatisfied, and never stopped making sense. It’s the only one that perfectly explains the human condition and why the universe is as it is. Everything else ends up contradicting it.

    As for “not mixing religion into everything”, this is impossible. Christianity stands at the very core of everything that I am; how could I NOT bring it up in such a discussion? I wouldn’t ask you to set aside everything you believe in for the sake of debate.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/9/09 @ 6:25 am | #Link |

  18. You have repeatedly insisted that I clearly DO hold to some concept of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and all but demanded I set aside my conception that neither actually exists in previous discussions. Cease your lies.

    Creator, I reject thee, thus I am evil? My mother is a wonderful person and I would be a fool and a retard to reject her, given all that she has done for me, but my father has contributed only three things to my existence: sperm, a regular paycheck, and misery and suffering. I have long since rejected him because his continuing presence is nothing but pain and misery and a degradation of the quality of my life in general, yet he created me.

    Does this mean I am evil?

    Imagine an entity, a robot or a golem or whatever, that was created with the sole purpose of suffering for the amusement of its’ creator. It lives for two weeks in agonizing pain, slowly dying a horrible, awful death while its’ creator laughs, refusing to do anything to help it and even actively interfering with its’ ability to help itself. When it does at last die, should it be grateful that its’ creator allowed it to live?

    I don’t care if you believe God doesn’t DO these types of things. That is ignoring the point. My point is the principle of your arguments is flawed. There is no intrinsic reason for me to be grateful to my creator just because he/she/it created me. I don’t feel gratitude for birthday presents received, either, just for the record.

    No I am not terribly interested in learning about God because I have zero reason to believe there is a God to learn about and your arguments do nothing but affirm my thinking. I do want answers. Your arguments are consistently relying on the very notion that your perspective is fundamentally correct. This is idiocy. It is, in fact, circular logic, that what you say only makes sense if I accept that certain things are true that you say are true. Worse yet are the things that you say are true with absolutely no explanation or justification.

    God exists. God is good. God made us. God loves us. Rejecting our creator is sin. This is sin. That is sin. All of these things are sin. What makes sin, sin? Why, God said it’s a sin. Sin is some kind of rejection of God. God rejects you because you reject him. Etc.

    All fine and dandy, but why should I believe any of it? Even if I accept parts of it, nothing else follows. If I accept God DOES exist, that does not mean he made us, nor does it mean he defined sin, nor does it mean rejecting him is a sin. If I accept he made us, there is no reason AT ALL to be ‘grateful’ to him, nor is there any reason to think he particularly cares what we THINK of him. It just goes on and on and on.

    Nothing you say actually FOLLOWS from anything else. You are telling me to accept Little Green Bigfoots exist, and then saying that if I accept this I must also accept that Leprechauns have pots of gold.

    The only defense you have that remotely works is to insist that the Bible is the Word of God and thus if I accept that God exists I should accept that these are his Words and therefore Truth, but this STILL doesn’t work because I have to ALSO, FOR NO REASON AT ALL, accept that God is Good, God Cares For Us, and that God actually WANTS to tell us the truth. If I don’t ALSO accept ALL of those things, the Bible may very well be God’s JOKE on us. Even if I DO accept ALL of those things, I must ADDITIONALLY believe that the people that actually WROTE THE DAMN THING were writing EXACTLY what God intended, as opposed to some kind of interpretation that distorts some key details.

    KCG, I ask that you believe in polka-dotted tangerines capable of curing cancer through the power of laser-death. I also ask that you believe the polka-dotted tangerines are secretly plotting the doom of the human race via liver injection. I have a book describing these things. It is the secret book of the polka-dotted tangerines. It describes all their plans in detail. You know it does because it says so, and it was translated by a guy that doesn’t speak polka-dotted tangerine-tongue, after first being written by a guy that we’re not sure whether he was perfectly fluent in polka-dotted tangerine-tongue. Also, the tangerines are invisible and intangible and the only way you can see them is if you die having already believed in them. Come, we must commit ritualistic suicide so we may stop their plot to doom humanity!

    You are using crazy arguments and until you stop speaking in a manner where I can only believe anything you say if I already believe in it, you’re never going to convince me that Christianity is anything other than a particularly clever form of memetic brainwashing.

    As for why I argue with you on this stuff, it is because your ‘morality’ is the stuff of nightmares and horror. It is my duty as a sane, selfish human being to ascertain whether you’re morality is justified and correct and I should go along, or whether you need to be convinced otherwise or shot like a dog.

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    Ghoul King — 3/9/09 @ 9:29 am | #Link |

  19. You think shooting me because I disagree with you is sane, yet you have the gall to call my morality the stuff of nightmares?

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/9/09 @ 10:19 am | #Link |

  20. Many aspects of Christian morality are disturbing.

    Cordially,
    Karamazov

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    Karamazov — 3/9/09 @ 3:03 pm | #Link |

  21. Yes. Disagree with you. Yes. That is why I have not made similar statements in relation to Flak, Alar, and TheNewHorde. Whom I think are all crazy hippies. (TheNewHorde is a crazy totalitarian regime hippie)

    Or perhaps I find your morality to be an actual threat to actual people in actual circumstances? Flak and Alar are crazy hippies, but they don’t devalue people because of an unwillingness to suck up to an authority figure hanging the Ultimate Punishment over them. TheNewHorde is a crazy totalitarian regime hippie, and has made death threats on occasion in response to extreme annoyance, but he doesn’t value you based on whether you think some entity exists or not based on zero proof and irrational arguments.

    You find it perfectly acceptable that God hands down horrific eternal punishment just because you’re not willing to bow down before him and acknowledge him as the One True God. He’s God, he knows better. The unfortunate implications for how you view authority figures in general are highly disturbing.

    Then, of course, we have your idea of innocent fun: “Hey, I think I’ll deliberately piss off people I consider friends! Let’s get them invested in something that matters to them, and then jerk it away from them so I can laugh!” Every time you tell me ‘it’s just a joke, Black Shard’, I am forced to conclude that whatever you said is meant in perfect seriousness or that whatever you would actually do is even worse.

    And on top of this all these bits that are merely the tip of the iceberg, you aren’t even consistent in following your own moral code. Here’s some thoughts for you.

    -KCG (That’s you) insists that he can behave in whatever asshole way he wants on the Internet because the Internet is meaningless and does not matter.

    -KCG insists that the physical realm is meaningless and does not matter.

    -KCG insists that God judges you based on the things you do and say in the physical realm, which is otherwise still meaningless and does not matter.

    -KCG inexplicably believes that the same does NOT apply to what he does and says on the Internet.

    Are you just that stupid, or do you never think through anything you say, ever? Or something worse?

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    Ghoul King — 3/10/09 @ 7:17 am | #Link |

  22. Yes, the physical world is ultimately just a distraction. However, we are not purely physical creatures. Since we are eternal, our interaction with one another have eternal implications. It is how we relate to one another that really matters. If you did something that had absolutely no negative impact on yourself or anyone else, it would be perfectly alright.

    As for authority figures, if anything my views of God lead me to be more critical of lesser authorities. Since I recognize them as imperfect sinful humans, it forces me to analyze them more carefully than if I just believed that most people are “basically good”. God on the other hand, is perfect and does know better.

    I’m not the one devaluing people here. I recognize every human being as made in the image of God, and in need of salvation. I’m certainly not the one thinking that I can pass judgment on others and decide for myself who deserves to live and who doesn’t.

    But since you brought it up, no, I don’t always think everything through. Sometimes I do things on whim. Particularly on the Internet. Because this is, after all, the Internet. And where did you get the idea that I consider you a friend? And yes, that episode will probably be brought up on the day of judgment. But if I was in the wrong, I won’t be punished for it, because my sins were forgiven.

    Now, how about you stop this hypocrisy of yours, alright? By your own words, you are a selfish nihilist. The only reason you should care about anything I do is if it affects you directly. And yet I do nothing of the sort. You decide to get all bent out of shape because of hypertext. I’m not injuring you, I’m not stealing from you, I’m not denying you the ability to have relationships with others. How is it that someone who means absolutely nothing to do provoke such a response from you?

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/10/09 @ 7:51 am | #Link |

  23. EDIT: Last sentence should read “How is it that someone who means absolutely nothing to you can provoke such a response from you?

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/10/09 @ 8:02 am | #Link |

  24. “But if I was in the wrong, I won’t be punished for it, because my sins were forgiven.”

    Whoa, whoa, whoa, cowboy. I hardly think God’s assumed intention is to give a get-out-of-jail-free card to anyone who accepts God. You are supposed to make a freakin’ effort, you know.

    Which you would think would tell you to stop treating people like shit. If physical interactions are only meaningful as they relate to God’s judgement, explain to me exactly how that makes internet relations any different? What, God hasn’t figured out how to get his modem to work, so you’re safe for now?

    ReplyReply

    Karamazov — 3/10/09 @ 12:53 pm | #Link |

  25. It is our interactions that matter. So. How is the Internet exempt? It’s nothing but people interacting, sharing data and talking to each other. If the physical realm only matters insofar as how we interact, than the Internet is no different and you being an asshole on the Internet is just as bad as you being an asshole under any other circumstance.

    OK, you’ve got a point on the authority figures thing. Why I’m supposed to accept, on top of all those previous things, that God is perfect is completely beyond me, but oh well.

    Yes you are devaluing people. People place value on other people at all times under all circumstances for an assorted array of reasons. My concern is not this fact, for it is a perfectly natural and logical behavior, but rather that your particular form of valuing people is based on meaningless irrelevant bullshit instead of anything real or relevant. In life-or-death circumstances you will value a faithful but useless person over an atheist that can keep you alive. Or at least you will place them much closer in value to each other than is really sensible.

    I don’t claim to judge who is and who is not ‘worthy’ of living. I don’t do morality. I do practicality. If killing a person is the most practical solution with the least problematic consequences, than I shall do that. If other solutions are better, I’ll do those.

    When I ask whether you think things through, I am not asking whether you think before you act. I already know that the times you have thought first and acted second are amazing exceptions to be remembered for years to come. My question in this case is ‘do you ever give any thought to the words you say and the implications the entire set of them presents to others?’

    Karamazov has put my thoughts on your auto-forgiveness claim more succinctly than I would, but I do have one additional point in relation: how is it you can insist to me that God is literally unknowable, and yet tell me with absolute certainty that God will forgive you? You insist that no one can know God’s mind, no one can know what we will do or why, and yet you also insist that you know exactly what he will do. These cannot be true at the same time. One or the other, not both. Do you know God well enough to determine how he will judge you, or is it impossible for you to know how God will respond?

    I’m not a hypocrite. You appear to misunderstand the meaning of the word. Hypocrisy is ’smoking is bad, don’t do it ever. Please excuse me while I go smoke now’. It is refusing to hold yourself to the standards you hold others to. I hold myself to higher standards than I hold anyone else on the planet to. I prefer that people have a little bit of logic, a little bit of thought behind their actions, and a few other things, but I don’t really expect much from people because I know most people will never meet my standards. I know this because they never do.

    And yes, I am a selfish nihilist. And you are a disruptive corrosive asshole that degrades and erodes the good things in the forum I hang out in. TheNewHorde is normally an amiable fellow that shuffles along being a friendly person. It is only you antagonizing him that has led to him being a hostile, volatile person. Flak does not go around playing pointless and cruel practical jokes on people unless you make suggestions like ‘hey, let’s pretend like I never left! It’ll be funny!’ When an interesting thread is derailed, never to return to the original topic, 90% of the time it is you whom derailed it.

    Certainly, other factors contribute: threads wouldn’t derail for long if the other forum members weren’t willing to respond to nonsense with silliness, and Flak certainly could simply stop listening to you when you throw out shit, and TheNewHorde could get some inner peace and stop caring about the barbs of other people, yeah, yeah this is all true, but the fact remains that the most practical solution to ending all this nonsense and possibly getting the forum (The site?) back on a track that is worth going down is to either change you so you stop doing these things, or excise you entirely.

    Excising you entirely hasn’t worked. You left, you came back, all was forgiven. You continued behaving the same way, but Flak did not turn around and ban you. Flak has repeatedly insisted that he refuses to ban you or otherwise suppress you unless you are doing something truly destructive to the site. He is stubborn, is relatively inactive, and is a hippie that avoids being unkind to other people if at all possible. I also cannot take apart his ideas because the principles are not flawed, only the execution.

    Convincing him to eliminate you is a non-option.

    Meanwhile, you post basically constantly, are perfectly willing to jabber without end about your world-view, and are justifying your behavior with said world-view even though the world-view is the antithesis of your behavior. Also, the world-view is insane and irrational, but this is very possibly a consequence of severe mutation and addition over the centuries. I can’t fault Jesus if his teachings have been corrupted well before you got a hold of them. More likely is the religion’s willingness to warp itself to suit local circumstances has left it with a core of the original concepts and a whole lot of garbage that was NOT originally there, which are difficult to distinguish between.

    That doesn’t change the fact that your world-view is fundamentally flawed and the way you are attempting to use it is even MORE flawed.

    Thus, every time you open your mouth about what you really think and see and hear, you give me an opportunity to surgically target these. Eventually you will either change your ways (I don’t care if you give up being Christian or retain your faith, that’s entirely beside the point), or leave because you are sufficiently vexed.

    Again, I would simply have you banned if that were something I felt I could make happen, but circumstances conspire against this course of action.

    That I actually enjoy intellectual debates simply means that I have infinite patience with arguing with you. I get something out of this. If you are to be believed, you don’t.

    Why you would assume that this takes place on the Internet makes it all meaningless to me is beyond me, though. I’ve repeatedly affirmed that I strongly disagree with your notion that the Internet doesn’t matter. I have, in fact, called it idiotic. You are the only person on this forum, in fact, to insist that Internet interactions are somehow invalid and meaningless compared to other avenues of interactions. Your continuing tendency to irrationally push your own assumptions into your analysis of other people is ridiculous, especially when you really ought to already know that the other people disagree with your basic conception.

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/11/09 @ 1:55 am | #Link |

  26. Yes, it is a get out of jail free card. Because if it were at all based on our own efforts, we would fail. It is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that choose the right course of action, though it doesn’t mean that they will always do so. We are still human, after all.

    But I really think you guys are being way too sensitive about this. When I say Internet interaction doesn’t really matter, what I mean is purely Internet interaction. Obviously if you met someone in real life and continued your relationship through the Internet, that changes things. But we have never met, and chances are we never will. We don’t know one another; all we have is a vague picture of how the other person behaves on an Internet forum. Yet you insist on treating this like I am an old friend who betrayed you to an unmentionable end.

    Keep in mind that, to me, your perspective is every bit as flawed as you see my perspective as being (give or take a bit).

    And yes you are a hypocrite, Ghoul King, because you do the same damn thing you accuse me of, and condemn me for, doing from your own side of the table. Perhaps we aren’t so different, you and I? Impossible to say, since this is, after all, the Internet :P

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/11/09 @ 3:26 am | #Link |

  27. -skipping Ghoul King’s incredibly long post, what can I say?-

    My point about the Internet relations is not that I know you, or feel betrayed, or consider you a dear friend. My point is, while Internet interactions may be in general less enduring than real life ones, that does not give you an excuse to treat people badly if you intend to follow Christian doctrine. Say you’re in a foreign city, buying a cup of coffee from someone you’ve never seen before and you’ll never see again: do you swear at them, or make fun of them? According to my own standards of “not being an asshole”, but according to your Christian principles of well, the answer is no. Why make an exception for a rather longer, if almost as shallow, interaction online?

    My answer: you’re an asshole who can’t stop yourself

    Your answer: . . . ?
    ——————–
    And when I say it isn’t a get out of jail free card, I mean to say its intended function is not to permit you to sin in advance. The emperor Constantine, who waited until he became severely ill to be baptized, may have done this, but I don’t think you should follow his example. Isn’t it considered preferable in God’s eyes to keep yourself from sinning, and not use the forgiveness as an excuse?

    ReplyReply

    Karmazov — 3/11/09 @ 6:50 pm | #Link |

  28. “principles of well” –> “principles as well”, of course

    ReplyReply

    Karmazov — 3/11/09 @ 6:51 pm | #Link |

  29. So all those stories where God has punished someone for their hubris or suchlike don’t exist? You are very definitely allowed to be an asshole as much as you want because of your faith in spite of all Biblical proof to the contrary, the Bible being what you insist is the True Word of God?

    Uh-huh. I’m convinced.

    Time is time, energy is energy. If you are willing to deliberately and knowingly waste my time and energy in a deliberate effort to piss me off because you think it’s somehow fun, than you are a problem. It does not matter that we are not face-to-face. It is the exact same result either way. And once again, you are ignoring the words that I am speaking and have spoken. Who you ‘really’ are is utterly irrelevant. If you are an ass at school/work/the internet and a wonderful person at home, the fact remains that people interacting with you at school/work the internet are having to deal with an ass. You’re ‘real’ self is only relevant insofar as it is the starting point for all your other behaviors.

    As for how it is ‘obvious’ that it would somehow be different if we had met face-to-face, it’s not to me. There is no difference. Interacting is interacting. Data is data. Emotion is emotion. You can build a working relationship online just as readily as you can offline, and it can be just as meaningful in many of the same ways. The only difference is that the internet is a low-bandwidth means of conveying information: it lacks subtle tricks of body language and voice tone. On the flipside it filters out much prejudice and preconceptions. Because no one can look at anyone else’s appearances or position and immediately go ‘white middle class guy’ or some such and make a judgment based on that, they are forced to consider their actual personality.

    If anything internet interactions are truer than face-to-face ones. You can lie and distort yourself if you like, but you don’t forgive faceless entities of their asshole behavior based on something that has nothing to do with their behavior. When people see each other and judge each other based on notions of race, class, sex, and so on, they will forgive things in some people but not others, even though these factors rarely have anything to do with the actual objection to the behavior.

    Nor do I treat you like an old friend that has betrayed me. I treat you like someone that has repeatedly wasted my time and thwarted my efforts to achieve things I value. Because you have.

    You are probably not talking about ‘flaws’ in anything resembling the manner I am speaking. I am not saying your perspective is flawed in the sense that it is imperfect and incorrect. It probably is. Mine probably is too. Everyone on this forum very likely has just plain wrong perspectives. That is entirely beside my point. When I speak of ‘flaws’ it is not a matter of perspective or ‘who is right’, it is a matter of the amazing array of internal contradictions contained within the things you do and say. When pointed out to you, you sometimes have a response that causes it to make perfect sense. (Authority figures just this conversation) This is the exception and not the rule, however: more typically you ignore what I have said entirely, or put forth an explanation that in no way addresses the original logic problem or even compounds it. So I call your perspective flawed in the sense that it does not hold together. I consider Flak’s worldview to be heavily flawed, but it does not contain a long string of inherent contradictions preventing it from making any kind of sense ever, I just personally think the world doesn’t work in a way compatible with his perspective. In another time, another place, maybe his view is right. Or maybe in this one, and I’m just too cynical for my own good. But your worldview? It can’t make sense. Not ‘I don’t think it fits with reality’. It it simply impossible for it to work because it assembles concepts that cannot be simultaneously true, because by their very definitions they exclude each other as possibilities.

    If I say I believe ghosts exist, I cannot also say I believe ghosts do not exist and be consistent. One or the other. Not both.

    I cannot recall condemning you for anything except a failure to be internally consistent. Nor is there any contradiction in my treatment of you with my worldview. You claim to obey a code of morality (Which you also claim you are exempt from… what?) that is universal and inescapable. To sin is to sin, to treat a person this way is to sin, etc. A person is good or evil based on their behavior. They are worthy or unworthy based on their beliefs. If you hold other people to these standards while failing to hold yourself to them, you’re a hypocrite.

    My own position is that I can do whatever the hell I want if physics permits it. I advance my own agenda. I do things that benefit me without regard for any moral code. That is how I operate. I would probably be a serial killer or some such if I was not raised to recognize the notions of ‘enlightened self-interest’ and ‘actions have consequences’. And not metaphysical nonsense that has no bearing on the here and now and no proof that it might exist, but real consequences I can put in concrete terms.

    You are an ass. I do not desire the trouble you provide. I am taking steps to end your trouble making ways. Any ‘condemning’ you are imagining there to be is you projecting your ideas of how people operate onto a person that is nothing like you in this regard. Your notion of ‘morality’ is disturbing and threatening, and you will do your best to spread it like a plague. I don’t like the idea of a nation of people that will ostracize or execute me just because I think God is a load of crock. You know, like America was back in the early days when pretty much everyone was devoutly Christian? So I endeavor to destroy or alter your thinking.

    There is no hypocrisy when I consider nothing anyone does intrinsically ‘bad’.

    Of course, I also have absolutely no idea what parallel you are referring to, so that entire previous paragraph might be totally irrelevant. I don’t see what behavior you claim we’re both engaging in that I’ve disapproved of. Could you specify?

    And no, we aren’t so different. Duh. I estimate that our genetically determined personality traits are around 90% the same, and that almost all of our apparent differences are created by different experiences. Like my mother raised me to be a functional adult with none of her psychological issues, which means I need to be able to think for myself, so I’ve gone down my own path (Thus the nihilism and selfishness: nobody told me I had to kowtow to my parents or anyone else, and I’m not wired that way), while your parents treated you like a trophy and made little or no effort to ensure you could function as an adult, hence why you’ve been forced to turn to other places for life rubrics. (Thus the Christianity)

    When it gets down to it, we’re both selfish manipulative bastards with a pessimistic streak, a paranoid streak, and whose default position is to place absolutely zero value on anything that isn’t the self. The biggest difference I’ve already covered.

    I figured all that our years ago back on the WCIII forums, though. I’ve even mentioned these conclusions to you. Why are you trying to provoke some nonsensical attack of conscience or whatever the hell you’re trying to do by implying we’re alike? You should know better, shouldn’t you?

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/12/09 @ 1:27 am | #Link |

  30. Ghoul King: In that case I apologize for wasting your time, not that this will change anything I suppose. But there are no contradictions. There are things you see as contradictory, certainly, and my explanations of these things aren’t sufficient in your eyes to explain them away, but I suspected this would be the case from that last discussion a few months back.

    P.S. The only person out to ostracize you is probably you. Certainly no one should be trying to execute you for your beliefs, or lack thereof. I’ve no intention of getting you or anyone else killed for any reasons whatsoever. And I’m having trouble figuring out why you think this is the case, unless of course you think Christian=Catholic and are somehow stuck on the Spanish Inquisition.

    Kaz: Of course it is preferable. I’m not sure what it is you are looking for though. It can’t be an apology, because it has already been established that no one here takes apologies from me seriously. If it is my admitting that I am a screwed up person, I believe I’ve already done that on a number of occasions. And of course I can stop myself; I think I’ve been fairly reasonable throughout this discussion.

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    KingCrazyGenius — 3/12/09 @ 2:29 am | #Link |

  31. True enough, you’ve been quite reasonable. All I was looking for is a recognition that being rude is something that cannot be excused by the fact that “this is the internet”. I believe I have that recognition, so I’ll thank you and leave a dotq discussion satisfied (what a rarity! ;)

    - still can’t work up the energy to read Ghoul King’s post. Yeesh. -

    ReplyReply

    Karamazov — 3/12/09 @ 12:05 pm | #Link |

  32. Oddly enough, I’m satisfied too. Having my complaints validated instead of dismissed is nice.

    One last bit, though. Not trying to keep this going, just a final clarification.

    I’m not basing my notions of ostracization on ancient things I’ve never personally seen and hardly know anything about anyway. The fact is I have been regularly shoved out of social circles by other people entirely because I DON’T ascribe to notions like ‘good’ or ‘kindness’ or ‘religion as reality’ and am unwilling to fake it. Some of them were Christian. Some of them were obviously heavily influenced by Christian notions. Some of them were just wishy-washy emotional people that hadn’t a Christian bone in their body. In most cases, though, people have found themselves uncomfortable around me at best, and more often they treat me more like a rabid animal that will bite them at any moment.

    So, no, this isn’t me fearing some scenario that is unlikely to happen based upon historical events with groups that happen to still exist in some form or another. This is something that has happened to me personally, regularly, throughout my entire life. When I’m not being treated this way, I’m surrounded instead by people that get their jollies by tormenting other people and therefore consider cruelty and suchlike an acceptable form of daily interaction with other people. Thus far this forum and two of my family members are the sole exceptions to this idea. (And you still happen to fall under the ‘tormenting asshole’ category at times, which is probably why I tend to blow up on you more than anyone else)

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/12/09 @ 10:46 pm | #Link |

  33. I love you too.

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/13/09 @ 2:33 am | #Link |

  34. Flak denies us the forum! Madness!

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/14/09 @ 12:56 pm | #Link |

  35. Nobody is going to respond to this, are they?

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/14/09 @ 12:57 pm | #Link |

  36. Hum-de-dum-de-dum-

    -oh hey, no forum still!

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/14/09 @ 12:57 pm | #Link |

  37. Oh no! I forgot to change my screen-name appropriately! I’m being inconsistent!

    ReplyReply

    Ghoul King — 3/14/09 @ 12:58 pm | #Link |

  38. Better! Fear the eternal gyggly reign of Gyggles! Fear it and laugh and stuff!

    ReplyReply

    Gyggles — 3/14/09 @ 12:58 pm | #Link |

  39. Hey, is this entire big long conversation going to be responded to in a later blog post thing? Just wondering.

    ReplyReply

    Gyggles — 3/14/09 @ 12:59 pm | #Link |

  40. Maybe Flak will respond to it all?

    ReplyReply

    KingCrazyGenius — 3/14/09 @ 2:50 pm | #Link |

  41. He’d be crazy to do that.

    Sounds like Flak.

    ReplyReply

    Gyggles — 3/14/09 @ 2:55 pm | #Link |

  42. I see text.

    ReplyReply

    TheNewHorde — 3/22/09 @ 2:01 pm | #Link |

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