So, I decided to go to college for computer science and ended up being elected president of a club...

So, I decided to go to college for computer science and ended up being elected president of a club. It's the socratic club on campus and I need topics of discussion that'd be appropriate for a college setting. Any suggestions?
Hard mode: Nothing to do with Nazis or Nazbol.

Other urls found in this thread:

geenstijl.nl/archives/images/suicide_note.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=p0dZ3IQtQGQ
jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/16/3/7.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Yeah, stop indulging in pointless discussions and focus on learning new things. There's your suggestion.

Once I complete my associates and bachelors I'm going to start an ethics degree so it's actually useful for me to participate in such an activity.

...

Just read and learn from the Bible.
They actually made an ethics degree? What nonsense. I can only imagine the mental gymnastics that goes into both rejecting the Bible while also trying to teach it.

college setting nowadays is literally highschool tier

I'm an atheist, the bible is useless to me.

>the thread creator is replying to himself on a different vpn

what is his endgame?

Can't come up with ideas on your own? Sounds like they elected the wrong person for president.

That's irrelevant. Your ethics degree is going to be comprised of as many of the Bible's teachings before it becomes offensive to someone.
Start reading the Bible rather if you're an Atheist or not because that book is literally Ethics: The Book.

bike lock antifa fag was a ethics degree tutor,get a trade

>you are are the thread creator

what's our endgame?

I don't know why they made the decision they made, but I guess I should do the best I can.

>Ethics: The Book
>Slavery is totally fine
>God destroys evtire civilisations on a whim
>Ethics

I'm going to get a bachelors degree in software engineering and work on automation and AI.

Stop lying to me and yourself with your strawman arguments and read the Bible. Seriously, if you want to win every debate and write the best papers read and learn from the Bible without the memes.
I'm trying to help you here.

I've read the bible, many times. I've gotten nothing from it that I couldn't get from Kant, Locke, Rawles, or any other contemporary philosopher or from Epictetus, Epicurius, Aurelius, or Plato or any other ancient philosopher. Quit being a faggot.

Since you are going into automation you can discuss what we are going to do with all of the excess worthless humanity.

Euthyphro. It's a fundamental Socratic dialogue. The dialogue says a ton about the ontological separation of morality (applicable to law as well) and God(s).

Honestly, in this regard I think the Accelerationists have a plausable response. Not the Nick Land accelerationists but the more modern ones. I hate that they're marxists, but they're advocating things like a Universal Basic Income as a response to automation. In my view, the economy will have to automate ~60% of low wage, low skill labor before a UBI will become viable and necessary.

Okay, man. It's your life. You don't have to try and convince me that you read the Bible. I'm just saying the memes that you believe are inhibiting your power with debating ethics.

We did the Euthyphro dialogue in PHIL-1301 and in the club already.

Explain why rejecting the teachings from the bible, the Old Testament specifically, makes it impossible to be a good ethicist. This is an interesting presupposition.

Modern Western civilization.
You're welcome.

We can thank Rome and Greece for that, try again moralfag.

Race realism?

Additionally, just saying "Modern Western Civilization" doesn't explain anything. Why MUST one accept the teachings of the bible in order to be a good ethicist. I'd assume you'd extend that to "in order to be a good person" as well.

No I'm not. This is not a debate but a mere suggestion. Again, I'm only trying to help you get out of the ethical rut that you're in.

Too many SJW retards on campus. I want the club to persist and I want to be able to graduate. In addition, it's not that compelling of an idea from my perspective.

UBI will just give us even more heroin addicts and purposeless losers playing video games and watching pornography.

In order to understand your perspective, can you elaborate a bit? Just saying "Modern Western Civilization" means nothing.

I was just joking tbvqh. I have no idea what a socratic club is.

It'll also free people up to pursue intillectual pursuits. We could see amazing scientific advancements, amazing poetry and art (provided people stop supporting bullshit slam poetry and vagina paintings as legitimate expression of art), and new forms of entertainment. I'm for it, personally.

It's like a debate club but we discuss moral issues and philosophical theories. We talked about the nature and origin of God, the problem of evil, moral luck, the necessity of ethics, moral objectivism vs moral subjectivism, and tons of other topics. It's interesting, but we're going to need some new topics.

The reason why I'm jumping around that question is because it's very extensive and I don't feel like going through every moral issue in the Western world and giving you a Bible verse.
I'll take the normalization of pre-martial sex for example. STDs are way up, the desire for abortion is going up because of being 16 and pregnant, sex has been devalued, etc. etc.
You'll find that for every social issue there is a Biblical solution to it and I feel like we shouldn't ignore that.

tbqh senpai. If man does not believe in something, he will most certainly fall for anything.

Most things that are interesting or relevent are contraversial and would involve too much bad think for a university.

I'd heard Brett Steven's mention the need for a "Transcendental Goal" in society. Defining what that is and discussing the higher order of stuff people want out of life or society might be interesting. It also might illuminate differences between people. After you've got your job, family, and whatever, what is it that you want? Where do you want your society to be heading?

A very small fraction of humanity is capable of being an artist or scientist, and they are not the people who would need UBI. They thrive in our society. The vast majority of people getting paid for nothing will be devastated.

>Hard mode: Nothing to do with Nazis or Nazbol.

why even come here then go to and
ask why men are such nihilist pussies today

Gonna have to agree with the other guy. If you give people resources and nothing to do they're gonna fuck and multiply which will have horrible repurcussions. You might free up a few good people but the other 80-90% will bring a lot of problems fast.

It'd make a great discussion topic though.

Touche

Wise words there, user.

So, everyone should obey your moral code because you believe that your religion is responsible for the west? We can soundly ignore anything that says that slavery is acceptable, stoning of people is morally just, and we should be, in effect, slaves to an immature and jealous diety who would think nothing of snuffing us out. And we're expected to worship such a beast, let alone LOVE him? You're out of your mind. I don't care if you have a biblical solution, they cause bigger problems. In states that teach only abstinance based sex ed, for example, teen pregnancy rates are higher. More secular states have lower rates of teen pregnancy AND lower abortion rates. Your religion is outdated and outmoded.

Honestly, I want to talk about contravercial things in this club. I just don't want to get it shut down if a stray, roaming SJW overhears us. For example, we almost got shut down when I redpilled my ethics teacher about the wage gap in a club meeting.

Because they're all boring as fuck over there.

Fuck with their minds.

Off the top of my head.

Is man inherently good or inherently evil or neither/something else.

Is meaning/value something that is derived from experience or innate.

Are teaching and learning intrinsically connected or are they distinct from each other.

Is a thing the name, the physical object, the concept, or some combination.

What is the reason for unnecessary suffering ideology or scarcity.

I do quite frequently. It's fun to make them trip over their own rhetoric.

> In states that teach only abstinance based sex ed, for example, teen pregnancy rates are higher.
It's pretty common now-a-days for the youth to go against anything that they're taught. It's almost as if they don't have an acceptable moral code that prevents them from behaving in such a way lol.

Again with the strawman argumentation and broad generalizations that are obviously from memes on Facebook, though. I can assure you that the Bible isn't what the angry 12 year old said about it.

Have you read this?
geenstijl.nl/archives/images/suicide_note.pdf

It may give you some ideas for topics.

More like kindergarten tier.

The goodness of man might be interesting. We're pretty much nihilistic in regards to things having "value" due the the indiference of the universe. The teaching idea is interesting. The nature of "things" is covered in intro to philosophy. Substance dualism is boring, and where that conversation inevitiably leads.

Okay, OP, how is religion exactly outdated? Because the vast huge majority of Christians, Hindus, Taoists etc. (NOT including Muslims as Islam is more of a political system than anything else) lead pretty virtuous lives and very happy. They follow their faith's moral guidelines because there is something hard and unchangeable (like the word of God) that is guiding them. And if they break it or stray, they are humble enough to say they did wrong and try to pick themselves up again.

On the other hand, atheism is not guided by something hard and unchangeable. When it comes down to it, you do what feels good. Your morals can be argued. If you say, "Well, society has good morals, so I'm following that," it still isn't right because society can change. Feudal Japan thought it was perfectly okay for samurai to "try out one's new sword" i.e., kill passerbys with your new sword. Who are you to change society? What is your superior moral guideline? You might as well follow the crowd.

Good thing good and honest religious people refuse to follow the crowd. It's why Christians got persecuted and continue to be persecuted to this day. Because they won't CHANGE.

Hard to do man. There is enough contraversial stuff atm to be pretty interesting if people have the stomach for it. But that'd lead you into unsafe territory.

I read E Pluribus Unum by Robert Putnam a while ago and found it an unnerving look into the liberal mindset. But that directly looks at diversity.

Civic Nationalism could be discussed I think because anyone can participate and it simply entails a dedication that people work towards a common good and maintenance of consitutional freedoms.

It sounds like you're campus can't handle contraversy if they can't handle the wage gap statistics.

Corrupting the youth.

Discuss existentialism. The idea that it is us that gives value to life. One could argue that all life is worthless or as close as makes no odds. If all life has a base value of 1 then how do you create a life worth 100?

>so i started another shill thread to silence debate

hide/ignore

Thread creator here.
All the other thread creators in this thread are fake and gay.
Anyhoo I've decided that what Socrates liked most was being an argumentative homosexual who thought it was OK to fuck little boys, so I'm just going to invite Milo to give the speech for me k thx bye.

When your shitposting is so bad and sloppy, it becomes an ascended form of shitposting.

I haven't thank you for bringing this to my attention.

So in Genesis, God DIDN'T flood the earth or destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, or curse the whole of Lot's bloodline, or allow Jacob to steal Esau's blessing and inheritance, or curse Ishmael? And that just in Genesis! He didn't allow the Hebrews to fall under the cane of Egypt for centuries, harden the Pharoh's heart (violating his free will), then murder the first born of every Egyptian family because of HIS OWN ACTIONS!? That's just ONE STORY out of Exodus! Fuck off with that.

They don't think for themselves. They aren't individualistic and ask some very fundamental questions of their morals and ethics. For example, "What do I think about this issue? Is it my own thought or is it because of my religion? Have I ever been at odds with my religion? How can I follow something I disagree with, even if it'll lead to evil in the long run?"

Rejecting dogma opens one up to these questions and make one think about what they really believe. Secular morality is far superior to fundamentalism ever could hope to be. In addition, secular societies are able to air grievences and exchange ideas in a far easier manner than theocratic or fundamentalist societies because nothing is off limits.

Now, in response to your "try out one's new sword." We actually discussed this in ethics before my final. It's a red herring. Morality should not be hard and inflexible. Exceptions should be made in certain circumstances. I hope I should need to elaborate as you're capable of thought but I can if you'd like.

Link to other thread?

kek Go be a faggot somewhere else

Stop being so bashful.
That did make me laugh, though.

>I haven't thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Full disclosure. The guy who wrote it wasn't exactly right in the head. He rambles, talks in cirlces, conflates ideas, it is not an easy read. Having said that, there are some great insights. It seems to me like sometimes it takes a 'sick' mind to point out what the obvious that we've all missed.

> God DIDN'T flood the earth or destroy Sodom and Gomorrah,
He did and he did it for very good reason.

OP, to understand the ethics of Christianity from a modern point of view, read Rene Girard. You will then understand why it is a low-tier argument to dismiss the Bible because "slavery and shit."

...

Ok, what was the very good reason? Raping an angel was fucking bad, yes. This assumes such entities exist to begin with. This also doesn't account for the absence of god over the last 2000 years. Given that you say he did, you must think that the events of the Old Testament actually happened. How do you account for this?

So much edge.

youtube.com/watch?v=p0dZ3IQtQGQ

here is another link for ideas to discuss.

Talk about the four unjust constitutions

Timocracy > Oligarchy > Democracy > Tyranny

I feel like a lot of people misunderstand and/or misrepresent a lot of what Socrates said about democracy enabling tyranny and it'd be good for redpills.

May as well just do the whole of The Republic at that point, no? Chapter 2 is good but it requires more context than what is available from a specific section.

Discuss what roll will Islam play in the inevitable one world government.

The very good reason is that they were unholy cities of sickening perversion. Men would get ass raped in the streets by other men, women practically became feminists, gender dysphoria ran rampant - the cities needed to burn.
> This also doesn't account for the absence of god over the last 2000 years.
I don't know why that would be an issue. There is an absence of god, but not an absence of cause and effect built by god. The Western world is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah and now everybody hates it.
> How do you account for this?
My faith.

We actually did that one already lol. I got a Muslim to admit that it's incompatible with Western Values.

I wouldn't say so. Each book works great on their own as long as you have some degree of context.

>The very good reason is that they were unholy cities of sickening perversion. Men would get ass raped in the streets by other men, women practically became feminists, gender dysphoria ran rampant - the cities needed to burn.
How much of this is hyperbole from the attitudes of the time? You're assuming that they were 100% of the time being raped and not concentual encounters. Even if it was 100% of the time rape, it's a failing of the local government to punish these crimes.
>I don't know why that would be an issue. There is an absence of god, but not an absence of cause and effect built by god. The Western world is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah and now everybody hates it.
Everyone hates the west not because of it being similar to Sodom and Gomorrah but because we start so many fucking fights. We shouldn't have gone into the middle east, for example. We should have left the countries who didn't want our help alone during the cold war. You think that it's this religious wickness that causes the world to hate us, but I contend that it's our actions and behavior over the last 60 years.
>My faith.
Quite possibly the WORST way to dissern the truth value of a claim. You're willing to accept things on no evidence or BAD evidence. You're ideas are, as far as I'm concerned, worthless until you re-engage your inner empericist and use that to discover truth.

If man does not believe in anything, he will believe nothing on face value. The religious are more gullible than the non-religious.

I'll bring it up to the club sponsor. Thank you for the suggestion.

>They don't think for themselves

That's projection. Everyone comes to God in their own way. There is not a single Christian I've met that believes in God the exact same way I do. Religious people are not carbon copies of each other.

>Have I ever been at odds with my religion?

Depends on what you're talking about. People will use religion to justify a good deal of political beliefs. A conservative on healthcare will argue that God never said to use a political system to help others/you should help others yourself in person. A liberal on healthcare will argue that God commands us to help others in need. I'm not sure what you're driving at here with fundamentals unless for example if someone was a Christian and wanted to cannibalize or screw a five year old??

>Rejecting dogma

Isn't opening one up to questions and make one think about what they really believe a dogma in itself? This is circular logic, like a case of someone questioning why should someone question everything. Every man believes in something, even you.

>Secular morality is far superior to fundamentalism ever could hope to be.

Now this is where I kek'd. What superior society that is secular in its moralism possibly exists and has succeeded far greater than any religious society? Examples, OP. I could bring up a few, like the state atheistic societies of the Soviet Union and Communist China. But I don't want to use this cheap shot because we both know they didn't end up in good hands.

>Morality should not be hard and inflexible.

Good to know that someone is familiar with trying out one's new sword. I can agree that morality should have exceptions. But you're dodging the question. If all of society believed that killing a passerby is right, then is it right? How do you know?

> You're assuming that they were 100% of the time being raped and not concentual encounters.
I'm not sure where this argument is coming from. Also, consensual seems almost just as bad.
> You think that it's this religious wickness that causes the world to hate us, but I contend that it's our actions and behavior over the last 60 years.
It's immoralistic wickedness that has caused the world to hate use including ourselves.
> worthless until you re-engage your inner empericist and use that to discover truth.
Your ideas are worthless to me because they're apart of what has demoralized the West. Not that you're worthless to me because I love you as I would myself, but your idea that I have to back up facts with hard evidence or else they're worthless against your lies that have "more evidence" is ridiculous.

One last question I'd like to ask here. So according to evolution, humanity existed for hundreds of thousands of years. As we know it, no great mass religions existed then like we do now with Christianity and Hinduism for example. Pretty much atheistic in character, right?

So then how did morals come about? Where did they come from? Because if we can both agree that there are people with bad morals or no morals at all, then where did the good morals come from? Being a good person is not in the DNA. Being a good person is learned.

What I'm saying is that the great moral advances in our society has all come from religious people. Slavery was ended by Christians and Jews. Democracy was perfected by Christians and Jews. Where did atheists make such great strides in respecting each other as people?

>go to college for computer science
welp you are a faggot, any real engineer picks up programming in their spare time

Just because there are a plethora of proposed solutions to social problems in the Bible does not imply they are legitimate solutions. To offer an answer alone has no virtue, only if you can justify it does it hold any practical value.

Every theist I've ever met has ultimately deferred to their religion. That's not thinking for oneself.

In regard to being at odds with your religion, have you or haven't you? A yes or no is required to continue.

I believe in things that I can defend logically and with evidence to support the position. If that's a dogma, then I suppose one can only reject dogma to an extent that is reasonable (similar to solipsism and the existance of man in this relation to reasonable skepticism).

For examples like the USSR, DPRK, or China, you refuse to acknowledge that it wasn't rejection of religion that caused this, it was the replacement of it with branches of communism in each respective country. This is a pedantic response onyour part.

Plus, I'd like to add that saying that you're "superior" in morals isn't quite the most humbling ideology out there. At least within my denomination, which is Russian Orthodox by the way, we believe that man is inherently flawed and weak. We do not think ourselves superior in morality to anyone because we know that we break our own code through sin. It's why we confess and go to church to pray in order to better and humble ourselves.

Getting caught up in telling others that we are more virtuous than they are is a spiritual pitfall. I'm sorry if any other Christian or whoever you've met has said something like that to you, and that's probably why you've developed this train of thought.

I don't know about you but it seems very implicit that if premarital sex was seen as taboo that STDs and abortion would be less common, but that's just me.
You're technically correct, though. The BEST kind of correct!

>the Old Testament
Literally nothing but Jewish fairly tales. If nothing else, the new testament is a master course in debate, since half of it is Jesus outmaneuvering Jews over the ways they try to circumvent the old covenant.

>One last question I'd like to ask here. So according to evolution, humanity existed for hundreds of thousands of years. As we know it, no great mass religions existed then like we do now with Christianity and Hinduism for example. Pretty much atheistic in character, right?
I would not be willing to accept that claim prima facie. Anthropological evidence suggests otherwise.
>So then how did morals come about? Where did they come from? Because if we can both agree that there are people with bad morals or no morals at all, then where did the good morals come from? Being a good person is not in the DNA. Being a good person is learned.
Are people capable of being good without religion, in your opinion? I certainly think so. It's an innate ability tied to an evolutionary trait called empathy. Kant actually said this well with the categorical imperative and his Principal of Universalizability. This is logic that we're all capable of operating on, there's no reason to believe that it's divinely inspired.
>What I'm saying is that the great moral advances in our society has all come from religious people. Slavery was ended by Christians and Jews. Democracy was perfected by Christians and Jews. Where did atheists make such great strides in respecting each other as people?
kek
As the west became more secular slavery ended. Democracy is far from perfect, though it's certainly preferrable to other systems available. Possible the best example of an altruist atheist is Nikola Tesla if you won't accept Elon Musk as an example here.

The concept of sin is laughable at best. Why should one be punished for simply acting like a human? Furthermore, should gay people be punished for being born gay? Why would your god do this inconsistent thing? I know you're not all Calvinists, so what is your reasoning for this?

Nihilistic approach is that meaning and value are derived, I thought. I mean even to argue that there is no value or meaning would be a lot of work for your club, I would think.

I could see how that would be a reasonable conclusion, but sexual behavior is often complicated and convoluted. As brought up earlier in the thread, abstinence-only education has shown to be less effective for teen pregnancy than safe sex education. Human beings are psychologically driven to fuck and I would argue that that runs deeper than societal taboo.
Regardless of the solution, I don't think appealing to the bible is necessary to come to either conclusion. You said it yourself, your conclusion seems implicit. It is demonstrably superior to use rationality to answer such questions than appeal to any source for the sake of appealing to it.

>born gay
Fucking retard.
GTFO.

It depends on whether you're an existential nihilist (the kind we more or less agreed upon) a moral nihilist, a solipsist (which no one really can be), a mereological nihilist, and so on.

>That's not thinking for oneself

Then when do you think for yourself? It's not like you can come up with a unique set of values that no one else has. I just prefer to base my values on something that is rock solid and cannot be changed on the base of whims and fancy. Take the US Constitution for one. Supposedly *very* hard to change, and that's the way I like it.

>have you or haven't you?

I'm still not sure what is supposed to make me at odds with my religion. All I see by observing the degeneracy and downfall of Western civilization is that the Bible is proven right yet again. For example, women should not be sleeping around other men as sexual diseases has soared since the 1960's and the DNA from men's sperm burrows into women's blood cells and are inevitably passed on to their children. Not to mention the psychological impact on marriage that several sexual relationships can do to both a man and woman.

>USSR, DPRK, or China

Not a pedantic response. Do not take me for a cheap debater. All of those countries installed state atheism at all levels of society. I'm not saying that enforcing atheism in society was the only reason why those countries failed, but to disregard the importance of religion in the respective populaces of those countries would be ignoring a key facet of those Communist regimes. They all actively campaigned against religion in society.

>Then when do you think for yourself? It's not like you can come up with a unique set of values that no one else has. I just prefer to base my values on something that is rock solid and cannot be changed on the base of whims and fancy. Take the US Constitution for one. Supposedly *very* hard to change, and that's the way I like it.
I don't know, I think I outlined what it might look like rather well. Go back and reread my answer to this point.
>I'm still not sure what is supposed to make me at odds with my religion. All I see by observing the degeneracy and downfall of Western civilization is that the Bible is proven right yet again. For example, women should not be sleeping around other men as sexual diseases has soared since the 1960's and the DNA from men's sperm burrows into women's blood cells and are inevitably passed on to their children. Not to mention the psychological impact on marriage that several sexual relationships can do to both a man and woman.
Ok, you clearly don't understand why I'm asking this. Do you think, as outlined in the Book of Liviticus 19:19-22, that slavery is acceptable in any form and sin can be indulged by offering a ram to God? On the topic of sin, do you think it necessary for God to send a portion of himself to earth to be tortured and murdered to forgive people of their sins when he's "maximally powerful" and could have just forgiven the sins? He's contradicted himself before, why not now?
>Not a pedantic response. Do not take me for a cheap debater. All of those countries installed state atheism at all levels of society. I'm not saying that enforcing atheism in society was the only reason why those countries failed, but to disregard the importance of religion in the respective populaces of those countries would be ignoring a key facet of those Communist regimes. They all actively campaigned against religion in society.
No, definately a pedantic response. Even Denis Prager doesn't make this argument and he's retarded.

>Being a good person is not in the DNA.
Except it is to some degree. "Goodness" to kith and kin (aka selflessness towards those genetically similar to yourself) has an evolutionary advantage over every other survival strategy, because it both mitigates risk by spreading it over a larger group and multiplies success in the same way. An organisms ability to reproduce is necessarily limited by its biology, regardless of the success, which is to say the resources it possesses. However, if there were several, genetically similar, organisms who distribute any personal success among the group, the genetic material of the individual would not just be passed on by its own reproduction, but by the reproduction of those among the individual's in-group.
jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/16/3/7.html

All that said, you are correct in your assertion that "goodness" is to a degree learned. As goodness itself is defined by the society commenting on it, and as such, reflects the characteristics which most contribute to its success. It is a limitation of our nature as animal beings that goodness so often aligns with a particular set of social mores.

You still think you're superior, hmm? That's not a good sign of someone that supposedly has a "superior" set of values.

>Anthropological evidence suggests otherwise

Anthropological evidence suggests that religion *existed*, but not nearly in a mass or organized form as religion is today. Both are inherently different in their characters.

>This is logic that we're all capable of operating on

This is essentially saying that everyone can be logical. Kek. This is impossible to reach. I'm sure even Kant acknowledged that there people who cannot work with logic. As human beings, we are defined by emotions. I believe that religion does a far better job at balancing emotion and logic by providing rules yet forgiveness for breaking those rules. Your proposal would be too egalitarian to impose on society.

>As the west became more secular

The West did not become more secular. It became more civilized. You mean to tell me that the Protestants in New England who even started the whole anti-slavery jig were of no importance? Where did such a atheist movement comparable to them even take place? To say that atheists could have achieved this by themselves is laughable, because you've never answered my question on if society thought that something was good, such as slavery, then it is good.

>The concept of sin is laughable at best.

I don't know, you're coming off as pretty stuck-up here. So someone can never do wrong? To me, sin is wrong. If you do wrong, it is sin. What are you driving at?

This is partially why I find it so difficult for moral objectivism or moral absolutism be have unironic followings.

Makes sense.

>Implying I ever claim I am superior
Listen. I am no more or less superior than any other member of a secular society. Secular societies have lower crime rates, higher education rates, and longer lifespans than fundamentalist states/theocracies. You're objectively incorrect that secular values are inferior, data suggests my perspective is more correct in this regard. Look up recitivism rates in West Europe, for example.
>Anthropological evidence suggests that religion *existed*, but not nearly in a mass or organized form as religion is today. Both are inherently different in their characters.
Religion existed, yes but it doesn't matter the level of organization it had. It still handed down moral edicts that the local population followed.
>This is essentially saying that everyone can be logical. Kek. This is impossible to reach. I'm sure even Kant acknowledged that there people who cannot work with logic. As human beings, we are defined by emotions. I believe that religion does a far better job at balancing emotion and logic by providing rules yet forgiveness for breaking those rules. Your proposal would be too egalitarian to impose on society.
I should have worded that better or operated under a different assumption that we were both talking about moral agents and not moral patients. My bad, you pedantic fucking cunt
>The West did not become more secular. It became more civilized. You mean to tell me that the Protestants in New England who even started the whole anti-slavery jig were of no importance? Where did such a atheist movement comparable to them even take place? To say that atheists could have achieved this by themselves is laughable, because you've never answered my question on if society thought that something was good, such as slavery, then it is good.
The west did become more secular. Religious laws were steadily being removed and weeded out in favor of laws that promote social cohesion.

>The concept of sin is laughable at best. Why should one be punished for simply acting like a human?
Because the definition of "human" itself is so open to interpretation. A psychopath who murders for enjoyment can easily mount a defense from that angle as he was, "only being human." The point of "sin" is to create an objective, irrefutable social guidepost from which to dictate acceptable behavior.

>Furthermore, should gay people be punished for being born gay?
Once again, "gay" is a deviation from the norm. A society requires its constituents to reproduce in order to perpetuate itself. An individual who deviates from that path usually becomes a burden upon the society, especially later in life when their lack of progeny to support them causes their care to be outsourced to the larger in-group.

>Why would your god do this inconsistent thing?
I don't presume to know his nature.

>I know you're not all Calvinists, so what is your reasoning for this?
I can provide my own opinion, but take it as the thoughts from an individual who regards Christianity as more of a cultural aspect than a religion. Original sin resulted in the loss of perfection and divinity wrought from being created in god's image. The deviation grew over time, until it reached a point where it was hardly recognizable as a divine creation. God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, saw in the flawed man a possibility to return to that perfect form. He drafted the two covenants with man to provide an avenue form them to pursue. Rejection of homosexuality is a prerequisite, as homosexuality is itself a deviation from the form created by god, and therefore a result of the original sin that must be redeemed.

>The West did not become more secular. It became more civilized. You mean to tell me that the Protestants in New England who even started the whole anti-slavery jig were of no importance? Where did such a atheist movement comparable to them even take place? To say that atheists could have achieved this by themselves is laughable, because you've never answered my question on if society thought that something was good, such as slavery, then it is good.
At the time it was illegal to openly be an atheist, so no atheists could have been known to have helped.

>Because the definition of "human" itself is so open to interpretation. A psychopath who murders for enjoyment can easily mount a defense from that angle as he was, "only being human." The point of "sin" is to create an objective, irrefutable social guidepost from which to dictate acceptable behavior.
I refer you to your previous post
>Once again, "gay" is a deviation from the norm. A society requires its constituents to reproduce in order to perpetuate itself. An individual who deviates from that path usually becomes a burden upon the society, especially later in life when their lack of progeny to support them causes their care to be outsourced to the larger in-group.
Given that ~5% of the population is gay is it justified in your opinion, to behave as the Russians have?
>I don't presume to know his nature.
But you know that it is good? Do you presume to know or not?
>Bullshit about original sin
There is no such thing as perfection. If there were it'd have been found by now.

>Book of Liviticus

Holy men argue over the Book of Liviticus. There are many things in there that are impractical for modern times, such as mixing different cloths. However, if you're having to argue against Liviticus, then you're grasping at straws considering it only makes up 1 out of 72 books in the Bible.

>do you think it necessary for God

First of all, I'm not God. I accept that I'm not on His level of thinking. So what am I to say what's necessary or not? Why should I ask this question when I have a far more important one, like why am I here, or where am I going? I believe that I exist because God wants me to exist and that He has a plan for me. I don't know what it is, but I'll do my best living life according to what He wants.

>Even Denis Prager doesn't make this argument

I'm not Dennis Prager. State atheism helped create a godless government that killed more people within a century than all theocratic governments combined over thousands of years.

>Book of Liviticus
Most religious people who make theistic arguments use Leviticus as their foundation for their moral standards
>I'm not god nor am I on his level of thinking
I'd certainly hope you weren't on his level of thinking, you'd certainly not exist were that the case. You should ask those questions in spite of your god, not because of it.
>Not Dennis Prager
Using him as a popular polemicist that's retarded and doesn't make this retarded argument that you're making.

dismissing bible is silly. read it and learn it