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[Eschar]

Regarding the left hearing aid, perhaps the wax traps have become clogged?

[Dunamisdeos]

On that note, I watched a little debate between an atheist and a preacher the other day, and the preacher said that if there was no God, then murder wouldn't be wrong. To me, that was conflating different points. Firstly, is something only wrong if you can get caught or punished? Secondly, how do we know something is wrong? Lastly, would this thing still be wrong even if God didn't exist?

I believe the usual argument is that without a moral absolute, there is not actually any morality. One can argue that humanity must define it's own morality, but the religious position is that human morality is demonstrably fluid and varies by opinion. Two cultures can approach the same problem and come to completely divergent moral solutions. We are known to defend these moral positions for generations, simply because they become comfortable. Naturally, a religious person would argue that the existence of divinity is necessary for humanity to resolve this dilemma, whereas someone else might argue that religion is a clear detriment to that goal.

Essentially, the idea is that without a moral absolute of some kind, provided in this case by the existence of a God or higher being capable of defining it, morality is in and of itself pointless. The Nazis were moral by their own estimation, saving humanity as they cut across Europe. Eugenicists who advocate for the extermination of those with genetic flaws are doing it for what they consider the greater good. When the US destabilized the middle east for oil it was framed in the minds of those perpetrating it as a completely necessary way to ensure the safety of our own families. Therefore, by the preacher's estimation, without God murder cannot be wrong, because we are incapable of defining the concept of wrong in any meaningful sense. It's a position that is effectively binary at it's core.

Whether any of this is true or not is a topic of heated debate, obviously, but I just want to clarify the position as I have understood it.

[JoshuaFH]

If anything, the existence of God posits a stronger case for murder being acceptable, and the Nonexistence of God posits the case of murder being immoral.

In the case of God's existence, it also implies the existence of humans souls, and an afterlife they can go to. You can stab someone to death, but you can't stab their soul to death, it'll continue existing and go on to the afterlife, continuing forever as it is immortal itself. Murder wouldn't be the ending of a life, but the forceful transitioning of one kind of life to another.

In the case of God's nonexistence, the question of murder is now an entirely pragmatic question. A question that where you can safely come to the conclusion that people generally have a finite time to live, people are only useful to the extent that they're alive, and so life is largely preferable to death, and so people that cause death unnecessarily are generally harmful to the society they exist in.

[Dunamisdeos]

I can certainly understand the position that God is not necessary for man to comprehend the concept that murder is bad. No argument. Human society generally comes to that conclusion with or without purported divine intervention.

However, in a moral framework of conversation, without some baseline of morality, society itself becomes irrelevant (in a moral sense). Without black and white on some level, however small, human society is an artificial construct that holds no more value than anything else. The universe will carry on with or without you, me, or it.

To be clear I'm not positing for the necessity of God in maintaining human morality, just why it's necessary to draw a line that cannot be crossed somewhere. The specifics are something humanity has been wrestling with since the concept of social interaction came about. Religion finds their answer in the concept of a God who, by some logic or other depending on what religion you ask, has the authority to set that boundary.

[wierd]

Pretty much.  (But in reality, such "God" just ends up becoming the enshrined cultural position held by the historical demographic that concocted that god.  This is why Christian God(tm) is the way he is. He was created to solve this problem in the bronze age. Bronze age culture was a bit more brutal than today. (ahem.))

[JoshuaFH]

You know, I'm sorry for that post. I was being a smartass. I should know better.

[Dunamisdeos]

I thought it was a good post ._.

[Eschar]

Yes, I think Josh a good point. The finality (in my view) of death makes life more valuable, as it makes the loss of that person truly irreversible (with current technology .)

An issue with the view that morality is defined by god/the gods/generic divinity (actually I suppose this is mainly a problem with the Moral Argument for God, which Dun noted he wasn't arguing for) is that, well, there are a lot of alleged gods out there, supporting a lot of moral codes. Accepting that a divinity makes morality, settles, on a practical level, the circularity problems. The question is, which divinely-ordained morality? If they all contradict (which I suppose you could argue against) then one or a small set (or none) of them can be real/truthful/holy etc. To tell which divine morality is actually moral, we have to rely on an "innate morality" or our preferences or what seems the most moral to us - and then we're back to square one.

This problem is especially glaring if an apologist uses "divine command theory" or the moral argument itself to try explaining away aspects of their deity that seem immoral. (Not to mention that DCT implies that might literally makes right. Noticing that in Tim Keller's The Reason for God is actually the spark that started my deconversion.)

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah, I mean, obviously I have a horse in this race, what with being religious and all. But I'm not going to refuse to acknowledge the conundrum from an outside perspective. We have sort of a lot of religions on the planet. Many religions contain tenets that are inimical to other religions, even if they don't specifically claim supremacy.

Christianity is pretty widespread, but has also been making a ridiculous hateful spectacle of itself for as long as most of us have been alive. Islam = ISIS to a lot of folks. You can go back and find instances of atrocity even within famously peaceful religions like Buddhism. You can also find plenty of non-religious atrocities. How do you know where that final moral line is drawn? More to the point, which organization can you trust to even tell you when they've all proven fallible?

[Yoink]

Regarding the left hearing aid, perhaps the wax traps have become clogged?

Nah, I have thingies for the purpose of cleaning that out. This one just stopped turning on altogether for some reason.   
Should really see if I can get that fixed without bankrupting myself...   



Also, why is this religion tangent still going on? Didn't Rolan already suggest moving it to the dedicated thread?   

[Fire and Glory]

Man, apart from some technical difficulties (i.e. the left one mysteriously ceasing to function) I haven't had any problems with my current "BTEs".   
They fit pretty well under most headphones in my experience, while sunglasses take a bit of getting used to but are mostly doable. On the other hand, yeah, phone calls are a pain what with having to kinda balance the phone up above your ear to keep its speaker close to your mic - but then, talking on the phone tends to be a drag at the best of times, hearing impairment or no hearing impairment.   

I think these ones are a massively improved model compared to the ones I was fitted with several years back, though, which I used briefly and then gave up on since they were utterly useless when faced with the slightest bit of background noise. These ones have served me well, even if they're well overdue for a service/tune-up at this point (and I'm unsure if my healthcare covers it anymore).   
Also they have snazzy purple moulds. Heck yeah.

I did exaggerate a bit in that it's not horrible to wear them with everything else, but having them in my ears is already somewhat uncomfortable (itching) and anything else on top of that makes it easier to not bother.  My own are pretty decent in that they work well, and Bluetooth is somewhat cool. I just wish they meshed better with everything else.

I'm wondering if I can get them to work with my PC but don't really want to pay for an adapter.

[JoshuaFH]

I just recently watched John Oliver's new video on Uigher persecution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17oCQakzIl8

And it just hurts me to see such pointless malice. A brief google on "why are the Uighers being persecuted" only turns up a vague answer like "The CCP is afraid of organized religion for reasons, and therefore cracks down on the Islamic Uighers." and that just seems absurd to me. The malice is so outrageous as to outstrip any possible justification.

Of course, I don't know why I even watch John Oliver. He's entertaining and I trust that he's telling the truth, but he always covers topics that are depressing and I have absolutely no control over. It doesn't matter how much I care for the plight of an ethnic group I just learned about, I can't really do anything about it other than know that they're being victimized and feel bad about it.

[George_Chickens]

I just recently watched John Oliver's new video on Uigher persecution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17oCQakzIl8

And it just hurts me to see such pointless malice. A brief google on "why are the Uighers being persecuted" only turns up a vague answer like "The CCP is afraid of organized religion for reasons, and therefore cracks down on the Islamic Uighers." and that just seems absurd to me. The malice is so outrageous as to outstrip any possible justification.

Of course, I don't know why I even watch John Oliver. He's entertaining and I trust that he's telling the truth, but he always covers topics that are depressing and I have absolutely no control over. It doesn't matter how much I care for the plight of an ethnic group I just learned about, I can't really do anything about it other than know that they're being victimized and feel bad about it.

One of the reasons why is that Xinjiang has been a hotbed for violent separatism and jihadism for decades. 'Turkestan' jihadists are currently playing a role in supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra), for instance. ISIS even tried to move in a few years ago by making a lot of Chinese propaganda, but seemingly have failed.

Of course it doesn't justify discrimination, intimidation and mass internment, but it puts it into perspective much better than "EVIL CHINESE BARBARIANS WANT TO DESTROY ALL CULTURE 4NO RAISINS!!!!"

[JoshuaFH]

I'd read that, it just seemed to me to be a poor excuse to follow through on an agenda of discrimination, rather than the actual primary reason. Though that's obviously just my uneducated take on it, I'm not learned in the horrendously complex history of the region.

[scriver]

A simplified way to think of it is that Uighurs have, including religion but also aside from it, a strong national identity of not being Chinese. It's not just a religious thing but it's also not disconnected from their religion since their religion is part of said identity.

China has probably hundreds or more different ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities, but most of them identify more in the vein of "being part of China". Uighurs have a strong feeling of being their own, meaning they are themselves as being subjugated by China, in a region that historically independent from China (meaning lots of history to be inspired by). The Chinese government sees this as a threat, and when confronted with actual separatists/terrorists have decided that the way to combat those is to destroy or cripple the national identity which feeds the separatist sentiment.