Agrippina wrote:

quas wrote:

Mazille wrote:

NamelessFaceless wrote:

Well, it's kind of the whole philosophy behind Christianity, isn't it? That we're all just a bunch of bad kids who deserve to be punished because of all the bad things we've done."

Yeah, I'm a sinner. I have been really naughty. Someone needs to punish me.

It's a very peculiar idea. An all-forgiving God who has to punish misdeeds, when He could simply forgive.

Not only that, an all-knowing god who has the ability to prevent something happening, but not doing that. He would know when a child was going to become a serial killer, why not just not allow the child to be conceived. But then this is where the "free choice" bullshit comes into the story. The serial killer, a psychopath who isn't able to understand empathy, or know that other people don't see the world the way he/she does, isn't capable of making choices. Which is why a bullet to the back of the head is a better idea.

Nah, god loves a good psychopath. Petty, vindictive, jealous, given over to outbursts of rage, lack of empathy towards others, grandiose and proud, capable of acts of cruelty and murder without remorse even rationalising it as a worthwhile and necessary act that the victim deserved.......sound like anyone we've read about?

Yeah. It's why they turn to religion when they're in prison.

Retribution, eh? The catlicker paradigm of social control.

How far should we go? Bring back public crucifiction?

Mick's race analogy fails anyway. Mick used the example of a runner winning a gold medal, others winning the silver and bronze. What does he think makes them ''deserving'' of what they got? Effort put in, or simply the fact of finishing where they did? If it's the first, how does he know the gold medal winner put in more effort than the silver and bronze medalists? What happens if the gold medalist was simply better built for running, or had got the most sleep the night before? What if the silver medalist had actually put in more training hours, or had made more sacrifices? What if the bronze medalist put in the most effort but received less funding? In what way are they more deserving than the other runners who got nothing? They get rewarded because they got the best outcomes, not because they ''deserve'' it. Also there is no inconsistency in my view like the one Mick claimed. A person who abducts poses a danger to others. Keeping him imprisoned is valid because it protects those others. There's nothing there to trouble my view that someone can lose liberty without it being thought they ''deserve'' to.

Indeed.

Meh, only the sith deal in moral absolutes.

It's fascinating to see Mick come to the rescue of almost everything that's fucked up and evil.

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Speaking of retribution, should some be visited on god for his treatment of the Amalekites, et al? What do you think, Mick?

Scar wrote:It's fascinating to see Mick come to the rescue of almost everything that's fucked up and evil.

Indeed. Still sometimes good people do horrible things.

Sendraks wrote:

Scar wrote:It's fascinating to see Mick come to the rescue of almost everything that's fucked up and evil.

Indeed. Still sometimes good people do horrible things.

That's one way to view this.

The problem with Mick's argument is that it is entirely "it just is". It is all very puzzling, until you realize this is what Christianity is all about. Sinners deserve to punished, unless they atone for their sins using blood sacrifice. How does this work? Why does an omnipotent God require blood to be sacrificed before He can forgive? It just is! No one knows how it really works. You probably imagine sin as a stain on the very fabric of your mortal soul and Jesus' blood sacrifice as the bleach that washes away sin. Very clever analogy. But does it REALLY work that way or is that just metaphor? Who knows. All that matters is sin has to be "paid" in blood sacrifice. Whatever the fuck paid means and how ever the fuck that works. It just is! You are not supposed to argue or question how that works, just accept.

So this is what is happening here:
People press Mick on trying to get him to explain why bad people deserve to be punished, and Mick can only say, "It just is!" Winners deserve to get medals, bad people deserve to be punished. Why? It just is!

quas wrote:The problem with Mick's argument is that it is entirely "it just is". It is all very puzzling, until you realize this is what Christianity is all about. Sinners deserve to punished, unless they atone for their sins using blood sacrifice. How does this work? Why does an omnipotent God require blood to be sacrificed before He can forgive? It just is!

So this is what is happening here:
People press him on trying to get Mick to explain why bad people deserve to be punished, and Mick can only say, "It just is!" Winners deserved to get medals, bad people deserve to be punished. Why? It just is!

It's all that bitch Eve's fault, dontcha know.

quas wrote:The problem with Mick's argument is that it is entirely "it just is". It is all very puzzling, until you realize this is what Christianity is all about. Sinners deserve to punished, unless they atone for their sins using blood sacrifice. How does this work? Why does an omnipotent God require blood to be sacrificed before He can forgive? It just is! No one knows how it really works. You probably imagine sin as a stain on the very fabric of your mortal soul and Jesus' blood sacrifice as the bleach that washes away sin. Very clever analogy. But does it REALLY work that way or is that just metaphor? Who knows. All that matters is sin has to be "paid" in blood sacrifice. Whatever the fuck paid means and how ever the fuck that works. It just is! You are not supposed to argue or question how that works, just accept.

So this is what is happening here:
People press Mick on trying to get him to explain why bad people deserve to be punished, and Mick can only say, "It just is!" Winners deserve to get medals, bad people deserve to be punished. Why? It just is!

It's because he hasn't got a glossary of intellectual-sounding but meaningless words, such as he employs in his god-bothering. In essence, he's doing the same thing he always does, but his regular vocabulary is useless here, so he resorts to foot-stamping as opposed to his usual rhetorical hand-waving.

I was surprised by the lack of polish to this particular turd of his, but that makes it clearer.

Fallible wrote:I was surprised by the lack of polish to this particular turd of his, but that makes it clearer.

You mean you're still capable of being surprised, Fall? I congratulate you!

That's what happens when you have an IQ of 10 and the memory of a dung beetle. Constantly surprised by stupid shit.

Mick wrote:When we give someone a medal, someone who won a race, say, we do it because they deserve it. This is true even if the medal promotes nothing; it is true even if it had no positive results in future behavior, no positive reinforcement. Of course that it also offers positive reinforcement is another motivator, and a good one at that. However, it is not necessary. The winner deserves his prize; and so he gets it.

Mick admits that there is no rationale or good reason for award/punishment. The concept of "deserve" simply means it just is. It's not for positive/negative reinforcement, it's not a natural consequence as in the effect to the cause in cause-and-effect, it's not even for retributive justice where the victim gets emotional appeasement for exacting revenge on his aggresor, it simply happens because it simply happens. We should award/punish because that's what we should do.

What always gets me is the "God is love" business and "Jesus loves me" all nonsense they spout while they take belts to their children.

quas wrote:

Mick wrote:When we give someone a medal, someone who won a race, say, we do it because they deserve it. This is true even if the medal promotes nothing; it is true even if it had no positive results in future behavior, no positive reinforcement. Of course that it also offers positive reinforcement is another motivator, and a good one at that. However, it is not necessary. The winner deserves his prize; and so he gets it.

Mick admits that there is no rationale or good reason for award/punishment. The concept of "deserve" simply means it just is. It's not for positive/negative reinforcement, it's not a natural consequence as in the effect to the cause in cause-and-effect, it's not even for retributive justice where the victim gets emotional appeasement for exacting revenge on his aggresor, it simply happens because it simply happens. We should award/punish because that's what we should do.

I think it's a bit more nuanced (but no more rational) than that. I think it comes from having a teleological view of the world. Things are how they are for a reason. Now because teleology is a bunch of crap, teleologists are regularly stumped when asked what those reasons are, and so various reflexive defences are called into play: "It's not for us to know God's mind", "that's just the way it is" are two, and circular argument that the reason can be gleaned from the consequences is another. Some people are just addicted to the idea that "why?" questions all have answers, and many of them are theists, because "God did it" is such a handy catch-all.

Edit: also, the view of people deserving pain is what you get when instead of building an ethical system based on minimising harm, you derive morality from a vengeful god and then invent apologistic justifications for violent revenge. It's primitive, but it saves the effort of thinking

Indeed.