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[Neruz]

You seem to be moving the goalposts a bit here. I asked if you had any evidence to back up your implied claim that the reason the average man is unable to kill is due to society and not biological imperitive.

[Siquo]

Generally people aren't going to go out of their way to do nasty things to people, and are even less so inclined when they know the person, and that IS a result of social instincts.

This.

My neighbour example was bad, but this is the crux: as societies scaled up, you no longer knew everyone in your town. This lowered the bar for people to commit crimes. Laws were suddenly needed to keep everything in check, but morals just work better than laws. I've met quite a few criminals, and most of them had more morals than the average law-abiding citizen. Those morals only extended so far, though. So there are people who take care of an entire neighbourhood as if it's their family, but if you're an "outsider", they have no qualms in robbing you blind. There are others who are respectful to all men, but have no scruples when it comes to robbing rich companies. Then there are those who "play their own judge", such as the guy who had to go to prison because he killed his niece's rapist.

Morals go above the law, and most law-breakers actually have a too strong "natural" morality. This is another sign that we've outgrown them, and they are no longer viable as a set of morals.

Bending the morals of the people is about the strongest base of power you can achieve.

[Neruz]

Laws have been around for much longer than civilisation. Look at the Aborigines of Australia for instace; they lived a life pretty much identical to that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, yet their tribes still had a fairly extensive system of laws.

The purpose of laws is not to prevent crime: laws do not and never have prevented crime, as normally when one commits a crime one does not intend to get caught, and thus the laws are irrelevant. The purpose of laws is to show the rest of the tribe exactly where the problem has occured. By dictating a system of laws, when those laws are broken the person in power (chief, judge, whatever) can then show where and how they were broken and thus set a correct punishment.


Also, Siquo; as per usual, personal testimony still does not an argument make.

[Char13magne]

Hi guys, just now getting onto this forum discussion, and I like the amount of constructive debate going around, 247 pages of so far. So, anyway, I just wanted to get my say into the melee. I consider myself to be an agnostic, and, not knowing whether or not the preference of agnosticism has come up yet, I will take a little time to explain it.

While I do not, currently, have any evidence to support the idea of an omnipotent presence; or deity, as it were, I am completely open to the idea should any conclusive evidence present itself. As such, while I am probably not within the capability of "saving" by the word of a person alone, should I be given more reason than faith alone to poslulate the presence of an omnipotent entity, I would in all likelihood accept it gladly.   

[Andir]

Hi guys, just now getting onto this forum discussion, and I like the amount of constructive debate going around, 247 pages of so far. So, anyway, I just wanted to get my say into the melee. I consider myself to be an agnostic, and, not knowing whether or not the preference of agnosticism has come up yet, I will take a little time to explain it.

It's come up... multiple times.

While I do not, currently, have any evidence to support the idea of an omnipotent presence; or deity, as it were, I am completely open to the idea should any conclusive evidence present itself. As such, while I am probably not within the capability of "saving" by the word of a person alone, should I be given more reason than faith alone to poslulate the presence of an omnipotent entity, I would in all likelihood accept it gladly.

This is about where I fall, but I still consider myself Atheist... Why?  because under the current construct of the universe and the world around us, a god is highly unlikely and if such overwhelming evidence did come to light, most of us here would likely have to accept ... but it would have to be evidence to profound and evident (that only a god could provide) to do so.  The evidence would have to be so concrete that only the absolutely insane person would continue non-belief... that's my stance on Atheism as it is.  It's more of a "Here and now, there's no point or evidence to continue believing in a god."

[chaoticag]

You seem to be moving the goalposts a bit here. I asked if you had any evidence to back up your implied claim that the reason the average man is unable to kill is due to society and not biological imperitive.

No, just sleep deprived and had no idea what I was saying. Plus a lack of comunication, and general stupidity on my part. Sorry about that.

Although, back to the whole law thing, law and punishment thing, laws are meant to keep people in place, and keep them working in an orderly fashion. Punishment is meant to discourage people from breaking that harmony (ideally). In ancient societies though, there may be a supernatural punishment for breaking the law, which may lead to punishing innocent people when an event is explained by someone killing another person. Not quite like laws, but a blend of religion and laws.

@Andir: Basically yeah, according to... some dude (Arthur C. Clark?)... extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. (And when people say, "look around, the evidence is there" you reply "That is a claim, not evidence")

[Char13magne]

Hi guys, just now getting onto this forum discussion, and I like the amount of constructive debate going around, 247 pages of so far. So, anyway, I just wanted to get my say into the melee. I consider myself to be an agnostic, and, not knowing whether or not the preference of agnosticism has come up yet, I will take a little time to explain it.

It's come up... multiple times.

While I do not, currently, have any evidence to support the idea of an omnipotent presence; or deity, as it were, I am completely open to the idea should any conclusive evidence present itself. As such, while I am probably not within the capability of "saving" by the word of a person alone, should I be given more reason than faith alone to poslulate the presence of an omnipotent entity, I would in all likelihood accept it gladly.

This is about where I fall, but I still consider myself Atheist... Why?  because under the current construct of the universe and the world around us, a god is highly unlikely and if such overwhelming evidence did come to light, most of us here would likely have to accept ... but it would have to be evidence to profound and evident (that only a god could provide) to do so.  The evidence would have to be so concrete that only the absolutely insane person would continue non-belief... that's my stance on Atheism as it is.  It's more of a "Here and now, there's no point or evidence to continue believing in a god."

Sorry for the redundance  .
But, on to the topic. I fully agree with you, it would, indeed, have to be some unquestionably sanctified and holy appearance that could, by very defenition never hope to be challenged in debate. So, cheers!

[Neruz]

You seem to be moving the goalposts a bit here. I asked if you had any evidence to back up your implied claim that the reason the average man is unable to kill is due to society and not biological imperitive.

No, just sleep deprived and had no idea what I was saying. Plus a lack of comunication, and general stupidity on my part. Sorry about that.

Although, back to the whole law thing, law and punishment thing, laws are meant to keep people in place, and keep them working in an orderly fashion. Punishment is meant to discourage people from breaking that harmony (ideally). In ancient societies though, there may be a supernatural punishment for breaking the law, which may lead to punishing innocent people when an event is explained by someone killing another person. Not quite like laws, but a blend of religion and laws.

@Andir: Basically yeah, according to... some dude (Arthur C. Clark?)... extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. (And when people say, "look around, the evidence is there" you reply "That is a claim, not evidence")

The purpose of law is to provide a construct within which people can operate that limits the harm to others via the following;

1. Providing specified formats for contracts, treaties, deals and agreements, then providing registries of these to resolve arguments about opposed memories or interpretations of them later on with these recorded facts from which unbiased third-party arbitration can pronounce final sentence on disputes before they degenerate into violent conflicts.

2. Establishing what constitutes 'harm-to-others' and whether it has occurred; logically and implicitly from the fact that that all conflict starts with, at least, a perception that another or others are violating a plaintiff's life, liberty or property or, at most, clearly doing or having done so.


Laws do not prevent crime, and never have. Things like locks prevent crime, the law merely tells people what crime is. (The enforcers of the law (Judges, Police) don't prevent crime either; their job is to catch people after the crime is commited and ensure the appropriate punishment is metered out.)

[Andir]

1. Providing specified formats for contracts, treaties, deals and agreements, then providing registries of these to resolve arguments about opposed memories or interpretations of them later on with these recorded facts from which unbiased third-party arbitration can pronounce final sentence on disputes before they degenerate into violent conflicts.

2. Establishing what constitutes 'harm-to-others' and whether it has occurred; logically and implicitly from the fact that that all conflict starts with, at least, a perception that another or others are violating a plaintiff's life, liberty or property or, at most, clearly doing or having done so.


Laws do not prevent crime, and never have. Things like locks prevent crime, the law merely tells people what crime is. (The enforcers of the law (Judges, Police) don't prevent crime either; their job is to catch people after the crime is commited and ensure the appropriate punishment is metered out.)

That definition of what a law is, to me, shows me that people are willing to work with each other opposed to killing each other as Siquo would have us all believe.  (Do you believe that you'd kill your neighbor Siquo?  That is, if you didn't believe in a higher power, would you actually consider killing or harming someone because you now have no penalty?  That in itself would frighten me and point to deeper concerns for your persona, IMHO.)

But in saying that, locks don't prevent crime either... a lock is a contract.  By breaking that lock, the person has broken your unspoken contract of social space permission.
Edit:  This lock concept is why I think people who want privacy should have a fence surrounding their property with a locking access-way.  It doesn't have to be a tall or gaudy fence, but it should be an obvious barrier.  Not having such a barrier would limit the amount of privacy you permit.

[Neruz]

Locks prevent opportunistic crime, which is all they really intend to do anyway. Many thefts are caused by people leaving their front door\car unlocked and\or open, and somone walking by goes "neat, a car, YOINK." A common cause of radio theft for instance is people running around carparks trying car doors until they find one unlocked.

That person wouldn't have stolen the car\whatever if the door wasn't open or unlocked. But because it was, it became easy to do so, so the person did.


The purpose of locks is to make crime harder, make crime hard enough and opportunistic crimes won't happen. Of course the determined 'professional' criminals will still break in and steal your stuff, but the wog on the street won't.

[smigenboger]

I just wondered how interesting the bible would be if it were created in the present day, as compared to being ancient.

Or if the Old Testament was advanced for it's age, or if people thought it was always as ancient as it is now

[chaoticag]

619 abommanations in leviticus... One of them saying crop rotation is a bad thing, so it may have been modern, but I do find that it limits progress.

Other than that, they must have thought it old.

[Char13magne]

619 abommanations in leviticus... One of them saying crop rotation is a bad thing, so it may have been modern, but I do find that it limits progress.

Other than that, they must have thought it old.

 ...............
 
Great example! I love it!

[RAM]

But, on to the topic. I fully agree with you, it would, indeed, have to be some unquestionably sanctified and holy appearance that could, by very defenition never hope to be challenged in debate. So, cheers!

How do you feel about aliens sufficiently advanced to have technology that we cannot detect? For example, they might have a chip in their head that lets them remotely transmute materials with a thought. Or create a convincing duplicate of a long-dead person by extrapolation their details from the expectations of the living...

[Siquo]

Ok. I'm no t entirely right now.

But.

Laws are there to prevent the "opportunistic crimes". Morals extend that.

Also, I was agnostic/atheist, acknowledging only my own senses. BU t then those senses told me that there was a god (visited by the holy spirit, as it were). I'm still confused what to make of it. Was it merely mn mind no own mind playiing tricks on me? I donnt know. But it was a significant experience. I... dont know

And am wat too drunk to make a sensible statemente