Sunday, August 14, 2011

Moral secularism

As a follow up to the previous post on morality, this was an unintentionally hilarious USA Today article about how secular moral judgment is so much better than religious moral judgment. I'll leave it to the truly interested, but here is just a sample of the specious reasoning:
Should we be afraid that a morality based on our genes and our brains is somehow inferior to one handed down from above? Not at all. In fact, it's far better, because secular morality has a flexibility and responsiveness to social change that no God-given morality could ever have. Secular morality is what pushes religion to improve its own dogma on issues such as slavery and the treatment of women. Secular morality is what prevents ethically irrelevant matters — what we eat, read or wear, when we work, or whom we have sex with — from being grouped with matters of genuine moral concern, like rape and child abuse. And really, isn't it better to be moral because you've worked out for yourself — in conjunction with your group — the right thing to do, rather than because you want to propitiate a god or avoid punishment in the hereafter?

Nor should we worry that a society based on secular morality will degenerate into lawlessness. That experiment has already been done — in countries such as Sweden and Denmark that are largely filled with non-believers and atheists. I can vouch from experience that secular European nations are full of well-behaved and well-meaning citizens, not criminals and sociopaths running amok. In fact, you can make a good case that those countries, with their liberal social views and extensive aid for the sick, old and disadvantaged, are even more moral than America.
Sweden and Denmark are secular? The Church of Sweden was the state church until as recently as the year 2000 and the citizenry still pays a "church tax" which can be as high as 2% of their income. I don't think now is a good time to talk about how secular the Scandanavian countries are with the recent religiously motivated massacre in Norway. In fact, that massacre is a cautionary tale for all moral zealotry, religious or secular.

133 comments:

  1. Doesn't Sweden have one of the highest suicide rates in the world? Anyway, good behavior deviates from the laws of nature, but it isn't an impossibility. I just saw a documentary where part of it talked about a troup of baboons that completely changed after all the alphas were killed by tainted food. Over 20 years, there are alphas but the aggression and stress levels are much lower compared to other troups, and they have thrived quite well. Just more proof that a lack of imposed oppression helps us all on the physical and mental level.

    If people truly do have a conscience affected by morals, let them be dictated by the ones that matter to them out of environment, not some dusty old tome.

    -TNP

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  4. @TNP
    Thanks for your recent advice, i appreciate your honesty -if you were being honest of course ;).
    I was typing a response when your blog was pulled.

    Here to learn.

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  6. I hope your website keeps you busy enough that you don't come here.

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  8. Psychic retard. That's what you are Erin. That anon was not Jason because it was me, and I am not him. You've been wrong about everyone's sign you've tried to guess on here. Your site will work because there are a lot of stupid fucks like you, who are willing to pay to hear the right kind of lies.

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  9. Erin said..
    Anyway,I believe man is MOST free when he is sold out to God.Then, he listens to a drummer which is bigger than man and bigger than himself.


    if he sold out to god, maybe. if he sold out to religion, he is the least free since religion will dictate every aspect of his life - then again you could say he is the most free since he has no say in how he lives life and is free from being the boss of himself. obviously, god has always been a tool used by those in power to control the uneducated masses.

    why not divorce religious moral judgment completely from god? does god really care how we live in this reality or is god about transcending this reality, seeing the "more"?

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  11. Medusa said (a couple of days back)...
    Erin, guess what?

    You are YOU already, right now. There is no prize in the Crackerjack box.

    WYSIWYG, at any given moment.

    Keep digging though, as I guess it gives you something to do.


    Medusa, would you care to elaborate? i'm curious and would like to hear more.

    from experience i've found that what you see is not always what you get. sometimes i fool myself. looking inwards helps me understand my existence and gives existence depth that it would not have if i was content to merely slide along on the surface of life.

    life is only a ride. at the end of the day, maybe just a cheap rush. to not take advantage of the pauses and reflect on what's happening seems like such a tragedy for this reason. the ability to look inward distinguishes us from all other creatures. without that you might as well have been born a fruit fly.

    i'm assuming of course that there is no prize for being a fruit fly.

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  12. I envy you Erin. I really do. You are so comfortable in your own little world, you can't see that you suffer from your own choices. You really believe it's god's will that life can suck at any moment..

    You give your power away so easily.

    I'm curious, Erin. What do you think about the fanatical religious psychos who believe it is "god's will" that they kill someone?

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  13. 945 continued:
    Don't get me wrong, though, because if a person (psycho or not) in jail actually transforms himself because he/she finds God, fucking more power to them.

    This is the real reason why i envy people who are believers.

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  14. it's all so convenient when you throw your hands up to magic.

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  16. I saw a woman get mugged and physically brutalized right outside my window last night. I saw the guy. I wanted to pick him off like a sniper outside my window.

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  18. Well tbh, Erin, I think you're kind of a dumbass, so I'm sort of baiting you I'm asking: if you saw a psycho who tasted "like a drink of water when you were thirsty" kill for the sake of a mightier cause because they were being honest about their feelings, how would that strike you?

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  20. No I'm not all that great. I'm human. I make mistakes, I have "bad" thoughts, I make shitty decisions. I am my own higher power, though. I have control of my own destiny. I am able to create my reality, not rely on anyone else.

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  21. So much damage has been done in the name of God through religion but for him to to make them accountable now he would have to make everyone acountable at the same time.
    This is the covenant God made to us through sending his Son. He will wait until the last person who is going to believe does.

    That simple. if you want to see the bad in everyone who claims to be a Christian so be it but then you will never be able to see the free gift of forgiveness that God offers to EVERYONE who believe that his son died to pay our debt and make us his own children.

    He knows who are his.

    Your given the right to believe it or not. And he gives you your whole life to see it.

    How judgemental is that?

    What do you have when you have God as your father? The most powerful father on earth.

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  22. I can't relate. I don't read the bible. I do like he stories a bit, and I do like the vengeful god of the old testament.

    I just think it's bizarre that people want to eat and drink dead jesus in church. Cannibalism.

    Yes, I know it's ritualistic, and I do all sorts of ritualistic stuff, but ferreal? i see these people tasting communion like it's the fountain of youth and I just don't relate. I don't mean to be disrepectful, I just cannot relate.

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  23. @Erin
    i see the bible as a product of religion, not the other way around.

    the one thing that distinguishes you from the "unbelievers" is you attribute your moral code to a higher being. you believe it comes from the outside. but that's only because you believe that. the belief that it comes from the inside is only a belief to. really we're all believers.

    here is a hilarious letter on taking the bible literally:

    Why can't I own Canadians?

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  24. I say, Tik / Erin..I envy you people who are believers. I do.

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  26. @Erin
    I disagree with you about the bible. In my opinion its not the word of "god" after all it was men who wrote it. and dosn't the bible pretty much say that man is not capible of understanding how god works

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  27. Tik, I believe in forgiveness. there's great peace in it. It is the answer to much anger I suffer.

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  28. What about fundamentalists, Erin? What is their deal?

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  29. What about fundamentalists, Erin? What is their deal?

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  31. I believe in having faith. I have actually gotten down on my knees and prayed to faith/imaginary god to make me not suffer. Yeah , I know, how hypocritical am I?

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  32. men wrote the book erin, not god. and if it was in a musem how did you see that is was the exact same?

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  35. Welcome to

    www.religious-sociopath-world.com

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  36. @Erin

    It must be nice to believe in something as strongly as you do.

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  38. Why do you think Clinton is a socio, Erin?

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  39. @Erin

    It would seem that you are doing much better than Clinton. coming to a bunch of Sociopaths for answers, or practicing your Astrology. If god is all you need, than why is it still not enough for you, Erin?

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  40. If God is the creator, he can have His word written by men correctly.

    Their are Christians in almost every religion because it's a relationship they have personally.
    Not because of their religion.

    Religion is what men have chosen to believe differently then the next religion, for control or money. They'll answer when it's time for misleading people.

    Will we all answer for what we've done? No. Because of God's promise that his Son paid our debt in full when we believe it.

    Eating the bread and drinking the wine is only suppose to be done in rememberance of Jesus dying for us, not to be taken literally. Thats one of the things relion uses to gain influence and power over their members. Saying you can and you can't take part.

    There's consequences for what you do here on earth and christian have consequences just like anyone else.

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  42. "Look at Bill Clinton the biggest Socio of them all.He is miserable. He looks stunned at what happened to him .He had it all but is miserable."

    Are you suggesting that being a sociopath is just a matter of being godless? Are you trying to say that if a sociopath were to find god, they would no longer be a sociopath? Or are you saying they would just be a happier one?

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  44. Erin, fear comes from lies or the unknown.

    Trust in God's promises, He never lied. When you feel that way at night, Thank God for giving you a reson to think about Him and tell whatever that fear is that you are the rightousness of Christ.

    We all fall short of the glory of God. That why Jesus stands in for us.

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  46. Guys some people are just really stupid and really weak and need something to make them feel better about themselves. Which is exactly what Christianity plays on, telling people " bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven" which is bullshit, the biggest mistake people make is thinking good will beat evil in the end.

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  48. So socio= just another sinner

    If that is your truth then why are you here again? I thought you said when you first came here you were trying to understand us. Now you're saying that a socio is just a socio, because they don't have god?

    I think you just relinquished your right to ask us anymore questions.

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  49. So everyones gonna go to hell

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  50. Hi
    I was looking for a sociopath blog but got by mistake on this christian blog, could someone post the url to the sociopathworld blog please, thank you

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  51. I went through fear at night off and on all my life. I don't have it now because I took authority over those spirits or fears though my daughtership to God.

    Simpletruth, there's no knowing how exceoting God as your father would make someoneone not a socio or not, i highly doubt it, but it would change them.

    When asked by the religious leaders why jesus was eating with the most hated tax collector's, Jesus answered, the well don't need a doctor the sick do.
    He wasn't saying the religios leaders were well but they knew he was saying they thought they were better then others and Jesus hadn't picked them above the rest. They wanted to kill him for that.

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  53. I told you guys that erin and tik are here to run the socios off this blog, and if you look around you, it seems to be working.

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  54. My last comment,

    Those that accept forgiveness and believe that Christ died to cover their debt go to heaven and those that don't will be judged for why they didn't and go to hell.

    We're all evil and no one deserves what Christ did for them but he did it and offers it to everyone.

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  55. So you believe there is no such thing as a sociopath then. All these questions and attempts at trying to understand how different they are, and you don't even believe they exist? You're a fucking mess you know that? You seem to change what you believe or why, like every other week.

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  57. @tik

    And why the fuck are you here? Did you come here to try and turn everyone christian?

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  59. @Erin

    What is that accent I detect in your writing?

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  61. Then it sounds to me like you need to let go of SW, if you are to go on to the healing that your Jesus has waiting for you. Why can't you do that?

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  62. Why would studying Spanish cause you to write with an accent?

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  64. @Erin

    It sounds like it is some kind of Latin origin.

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  66. Erin are you saying you're here so you can let Jesus into your heart

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  67. You imitate how others write on here a lot, but it still doesn't cover up that accent of yours. Why are you ashamed of it?

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  69. I'm willing to bet English is your second language. Are you ashamed to come from a Latin background?

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  72. I love how you guys keep guessing the wrong person behind the anons. First Jason and now Cosette?
    I have been accused of being so many people other than who I really am.

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  73. You guys are the ones who ran all the regulars off, so you should already know that none of these anons are them. Wishful thinking?

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  75. we love how you love that, anon

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  76. Yesterday it was Medusa when it was so obvious that it wasn't

    No Erin, they're gone because you're too annoying to be around, and the only way to get away from you is to leave SW.

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  78. Better like you? So you think you're better than them.

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  81. So you came here to change things. Is that it? Oh I forgot, you're the only one here who's fascinating. So you belong here, and the others should leave.

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  82. Take a look a ME's Twitter. Who would you say dominates the quotes put up there Erin? You? No you don't. The regulars do. So I think it's more about what she likes to see around here, not what you like. It is her blog, not yours.

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  85. Sociopaths don't feel shame. When are you going to get that through your thick head. People are gone because they are sick of reading your stupidity.

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  87. Oh really? So now you're an expert on Sociopaths. Hmmm and yet all these studies say they can not feel remorse, guilt, or shame. Imagine that. Erin is the expert on sociopaths now.

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  89. FUCK THIS PLACE! FUCK IT!! FUCK THIS FUCKING PLACE!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK!

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  90. So because men are flawed, I guess they can't be the experts on anything can they? Not even the Bible. So I guess it can't be proven that abuse is real. maybe that's just man being rigid. Maybe nothing is real and can't be proven by anything. Maybe we should throw away all boundaries, and just do what we want.

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  91. tik said...
    My last comment,

    Those that accept forgiveness and believe that Christ died to cover their debt go to heaven and those that don't will be judged for why they didn't and go to hell.

    We're all evil and no one deserves what Christ did for them but he did it and offers it to everyone.


    it must be getting very crowded in hell. like a bus at rush hour, i imagine. people stepping all over each other, old ladies spread out on the seats passing gas, and big sweaty guys leaning over you belching their breakfast and staring at your chest.

    tik, why are you here? why would a good christian hang around here?

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  92. Zoe, perhaps tik is here because some part of her ins't a "good Christian" (see what I did there?). Maybe some part of ole tikles is attracted to the dark side. Which is only marginally more interesting than all this useless blather about the very bad fan fiction otherwise known as Christianity.

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  94. ‎"We're the country that put a man on the moon, and we're also the country that created the rumor that we did not put a man on the moon." -- John Hodgman

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  95. We're all evil and no one deserves what Christ did for them but he did it and offers it to everyone.

    Thanks, Jesus

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  96. We'll never now what really happened with juanita broderick. She changed hr stories so many times. Do you have insider info about her allegations against Clinton?

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  97. The sociopath blog with it's tough and funny discussions 'is no more'. And that won't change as long as she's here.

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  99. that faggot david deleted all his comments and left

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  100. That's kind of odd. Why not just leave? Why delete all your shit?

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  101. Well Daniel you may have something there but who doesn't have different sides to them.

    Simpletruth,I in no way ment that their are no such things as socio's. I know that their are.

    And why I am here is for my own reasons. I wouldn't dream of converting anyone, thats just not my job. But if you ask a question expect an answer.

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  102. "Sweden and Denmark are secular?"

    Yep. A trip to Copenhagen will show it. Despite the lutheran church being the state's official religion in Denmark, and despite the cultural influence the church still holds, the danes are surprisingly agnostic.

    Skeptical? Check out the data that helped the eurobarometer (http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html).

    And you can skip church tax by simply checking a box.

    Wanna see an atheist country? Visit Ukraine. I saw entire city blocks with atheist families there.

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  103. David really did remove all his posts.

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  104. Go secular humanismAugust 14, 2011 at 6:56 PM

    No one lays more voluble claim to morality than zealots of any Western faith. The manipulation, control and hypocritical self definition... rigidity steeled in that notarized by god superiority.

    In the name of the lord is an abomination.

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  105. @Tik

    Perhaps Erin will follow David's lead and SW will return to the edenic place it was before the fall. :-P

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  106. Hmmmm...interesting nosepicking going on today :-)

    My thoughts...God is whatever we want to make he/she/it.
    We fool ourselves into the power of a "higher being" to fill a void.
    That void can be filled with almost anything we consider appropriate or useful.
    Most "christians" follow their path so that they are not going to miss out something that they percieve as "good" and "righteous". They follow their "god" because they dont want to be left out of something that could benefit them immensely (ie: eternal life). (( Not unlike a socio)
    It amuses me how the readers of the bible cannot see how bastardised it is by the hands of many people who have written and re-re-re-re written its content.
    A socio could write a rule book on do's and donts for up and coming sopciopaths and some would adopt it as "gospel" and swear that it had altered their lives and thought patterns. Indeed if it were embraced into the mainstream and advertised as holding the keys to lifes mysteries and offered a way to immortalise oneself, SOME people would embrace it as the best thing since crematorial ash resin ornaments and despite the fact that it had been written by a human being, there would still be some people (yes Im refraining from using the obvious derogatory terms), who would proclaim it divinely inspired. Doesnt matter how many, there would be at least ONE..which is enough for people to proclaim it "real".

    Would that make Ukan "Jesus" ?

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  107. The mafia said...
    We're all evil and no one deserves what Christ did for them but he did it and offers it to everyone.

    Thanks, Jesus

    Yeah, thanks nazarene...for sneakily creating one of the biggest literary cockups of ALL time. Thanks for making sandals fashionable for idiots...thanks for showing people how to fish..now every pricks doing it and raping our resources. (I wonder if jesus was in fact chinese?)..
    thanks jesus for giving retards and powertrippers a fake moral reason to act like bigger fuckbags than they really are......thanks jesus for getting rid of those pesky sodomites (they were getting out of hand).

    thanks heaps!!!

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  108. ATTENTION!!....ACHTUNG!!!

    The management would like to take this moment to inform you (the masses) that Hell is now full.
    Any further divine interventions have now been put on hold until the management finds an alternative storage facility for the overflow of wayward and evil souls.
    Consideration is now being given to the use of Heavens sewerage system (yes even angels defecate) for this purpose.
    For updated information on the impending closure of hell please visit www.hellrelocationproject.com
    thank you for taking the time to take part in this rewarding and socially uplifting scheme.

    Signed

    Mr L.U cifer
    (resident population manager of hell)

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  109. Daniel said..
    Zoe, perhaps tik is here because some part of her ins't a "good Christian" (see what I did there?). Maybe some part of ole tikles is attracted to the dark side. Which is only marginally more interesting than all this useless blather about the very bad fan fiction otherwise known as Christianity.


    Daniel, i always enjoy hearing your perspective on things. do i see what you did there? i see you capitalized Christian :)

    the dark side can be compelling. if you entertain it by trying to understand it, by allowing it in, you risk humanizing it. humanize evil and you lose faith in its existence. the next step is losing faith in the religion. why is it that the belief in evil not the belief in good holds power of a christian?

    so tik, i was wondering only if you were here because you were questioning your beliefs, that's all.

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  110. you sooo funny Lycan

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  111. Lycan, a few weeks back, there was a discussion on possible treatment plans for socios comparable to dbt for borderlines. Maybe the program should be run by bible readers..

    Brainwashing and self flaggelation, is the kind of thing Erin and Tik may be secretly proposing.

    David, I know you got disgusted and left the discussion, but not sure why. As a Jew (cuturally speaking or practicing kind) what do you think about something like this?

    I know from experience that lots of Born Agains LURVE the Jews.

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  112. O M G

    That's an amazing idea! Do you psychos even KNOW how many Jewish psychos are in the psych ward right now? PDs are freakin rampant with our people.

    I'm not even talking the Israelis. I'm talkin regular Jews. What do you socios make of that?

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  113. @Rachel

    WOW!..show me where they are QUICK and I'll get them signed up for the new software program to spy on people....I'll ask Ukan to be the logistics management...hahahaha..what fun that will be!

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  114. Wow you're outspoken, Lycan!

    Do you make an in-joke with Ukan, or are you giving him a dig?

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  115. @Rachel

    I dont know Ukan that well Rachel, as Ive only been on the site for a short while. From what Ive seen, and watching the interactions of people in here, I would think someone with Ukans persona would make an interesting logistics manager. I think it would be hilariously funny actually. Maybe it appeals to my sadistic streak.
    And yes...perhaps sometimes I am outspoken Rachel. I blame it on the 48 bowls of fruit loops I had for lunch.

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  117. Anonymous said...
    Lycan, a few weeks back, there was a discussion on possible treatment plans for socios comparable to dbt for borderlines. Maybe the program should be run by bible readers..

    Brainwashing and self flaggelation, is the kind of thing Erin and Tik may be secretly proposing.

    Hmmmm...I think such a program would descend into chaos very quickly.....even faster if it were nuns doing the bible reading. Unless of course they were very attractive nuns...then I'd pretend to learn anything they wanted.

    Oddly enough I watched a movie last night that dealt with the very subject of self-flagellation. I tried very hard to see the rationale behind such an act but in the end decided that it was actually a rather pointless exercise..... messy, irritating and pointless.
    Perhaps there could be a therapy used whereby choice verses of the bible were read over and over again whilst the socio's bashed bibles against their heads in time to a metronome. That would bring an ordered learning experience that would incorporate both brain washing AND self flagellation and dialectal redirection. I think it would end up having funding problems though.

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  118. Rachel said...
    O M G

    That's an amazing idea! Do you psychos even KNOW how many Jewish psychos are in the psych ward right now? PDs are freakin rampant with our people.

    I'm not even talking the Israelis. I'm talkin regular Jews. What do you socios make of that?....

    I think that the ingestion of pork would stop a lot of it.
    Perhaps it indicates that jews are not as robust mentally as we think?......perhaps there is a genetic anomaly that has suddenly reared its head within the DNA chain , and the psychos are secretly being militarily trained in a covert plan to re-subvert more of palestine?.
    Sounds ludicrously stupid until you pause and think that there are people who are actually doing this type of thing and passing it off as medical science...then...not quite so amusing.
    Its a good thing Im not paranoid.

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  119. Goddammit...see what happens when I eat fruit loops?...I write banal drivel...now Im going to have to eat 87 bits of toast to offset the fruitloops. Oh the shit I do to keep myself entertained......

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  120. A catholic person does not pray to God asking for a bicycle.
    A catholic person steals a bicycle and then prays to God asking for forgiveness.

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  121. Ah yes anon, but apparently god helps those who help themselves!

    3 hail marys and pedal faster.

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  122. LOL Lychan. Try a Cilice,crown of thorns wherever you'd like.

    As for the chosen people there is not only a substantial amount of inbreeding but certain lifestyle considerations beyond pork. Psychologically I would say the PD tendencies and less organic disturbances have much to do with the sort of control and manipulation religions license their adherents exert: God told me to do do it. Plus, the Holocaust has provided a good rationale for just about any obstreperous behavior. Genetically, I am sure the flip side of all those myelin sheath disorders confers some strong survival skills like 'calculates interest well.'

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  123. No, the Jews inhabit the psych wards, let's face it, because they're fucking hypochondriacs. They also have more access to treatment because they are more self aware, because:

    They do therapy as a lifestyle choice, Hello. It's scheduled in like the gym.

    Oh yeah, and inbreeding.

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  124. Quietly scrawls in his little notebook a wee reminder to schedule a session with a therapist so he can torment her/him and graphically demonstrate that socios are often really unfriendly and dislikable.....no wait its wednesday...Thats my day for going to the allergy meeting and dropping nut dust in their pockets.....sometimes choices SUCK!.
    It would be interesting to see a jewish psych ward. I think it would be sombre and rather unappealing but interesting ....... if i move really quick I'll be able to sneak their biscuits before they're able to stab me with their pencils.....then I'll tell them erin told me to do it....

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  125. As someone irreligious, I've had a few thoughts about this that you might like to read.

    I think its worth asking what religious and secular ethics even mean in the first place, when students of religion cannot even define the religious and the secular as different categories that apply across all cultures. (In a similar way, students of comparative philosophy have similar hermaneutic problems when they try to apply labels of culture-specific origin such as epistemology to other societies.) Secondly there is the bigger problem that students of comparative religion such as Mircea Eliade have proven the presence of mythological and 'religious' thinking within mainstream 'secular' thought such as Marxism, American patriotism and Neitzsche's ideal of the Superman which has been interpreted as a justification of present action on its not-yet-present behalf. Indeed, it has been said that all of modern secular politics represents socioeconomic messianism of some kind of another.

    In keeping with the observations that there is no objective difference between the religious and the secular, is that there are no parts of the brain that have an exclusively 'religious' or 'secular' functioning. Indeed there is evidence that the differences in brain structure that separate liberals from conservatives in an American context are of more importance than those separating religious and secular thought.

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  126. Atheists debunk teism, but why not morality?

    As for the rationality of atheistic or secular morality, we should remember moral values are not components of phenomena themselves, but merely products of the observers own cognition. that exist only in perception. Moral judgments are therefore mistaken attempts to describe the nature of phenomena, and there is no moral knowledge because the word 'knowledge' implies an understanding of the *true* nature of phenomena, rather than depending upon unsubstantiated perceptions of them. But in spite of the irrefutable logic of error theory, most atheists and other self proclaimed 'rationalists' are not meta-ethical nihilists. Its like people will refute illogic they dont like and then keep clinging to the rest.

    For example, in Western bioethics there is an obsession with 'conciousness' and 'personhood' that can trace their origins to the Christian and especially Protestant idea of the individual soul, so that the ideal of finding a point in human ontology when a fetus becomes a 'human being' based upon awareness is nothing more than a secular revaluation of the rationally refuted concept of quickening.

    Likewise most secularists are moral universalists, who support Enlightenment concepts like human rights and merely disagree with the way to achieve universal suffrage, but this moral universalism is a part of their culture-specific Christian heritage.

    Why must we value the individual separate from its genetic self-interest? Why must we accept 'one human race'?

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  127. Is morality costly?

    New Atheists like to claim religion is a costly spandrel or a mind-virus (although they have to justify this position by selection bias). And politicised secularists actually make one-sided, moralistic arguments against the historical 'crimes' of religion so often, that their ridiculous claims that religion is purely costly and harmful (despite being so successful for centuries!) are obviously an example of the 'ought-is' or moralistic logical fallacy.

    But it is through morals that religion (and other ideologies) control people. What if the capacity for moral judgement itself is a useless and costly spandrel?

    Many of the 'crimes' that were perpetrated by organised religions or that were justified using religious arguments, were ultimately in the genetic self-interest of the perpetrator.

    We should remember that according to Satoshi Kanazawa, the secular left are more likely than the religious right to argue using the moralistic fallacy such as accusations involving -isms and -phobias, as well as the leftist-led 'sociobiology wars' etc.

    And why not with the old and in with the new, instead of the tried and tested.

    We should also remember that appeal to novelty is a logical fallacy, just as is appeal to tradition. And the widespread secular support for policies such as pro-choice and gay marriage is obviously based on the appeal of novelty, given how few of the average policy-supporters actually understand the issues in question.

    Far from being proof of secular rationality, the fact that certain political positions are so popular among unknowledgeable secularists actually confirms that the average secularist is a herd animal, who is either incapable of making his own decisions about social issues or is too spineless to go against the herd, so he still follows it anyway, even if it takes him off the side of a cliff. In other words, secularists are vulnerable to the same forms of social control as the religious are.

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  128. Although secular ethics are almost always universalist, I notice that secularist types prefer to ignore inconvenient universals, such as the universality of some kind of family values, that all cultures associate womanhood with childbirth and childrearing, or that heterosexual marriage is universal whilst homosexual marriage is not.

    Of course conservative ethics are frequently nonsensical, but so are moralistic, secular statements such as "marriage is about love, not the family!" and "women do not exist simply to have babies", once one takes into account the implications of sociobiology for humans, or of functionalism in anthropology.

    Despite the efforts of secular humanists to dismiss matters of sex as socially irrelevant, the fact is that all cultures possess taboos and laws about sexual behaviour that universally support the heterosexual family. In ancient Greece homosexuality was widely practiced, and tolerated. Yet these men were still expected to have heterosexual families, and homosexual marriage was unheard of. I shouldn't need to point out the biological explanation why heterosexuality was favoured in Greek marriage customs, or why some cultures have completely condemned and persecuted homosexuals with no ill-effect to the survival of the group at large, but no cultures have ever persecuted heterosexuals in the same way. Of course matters of sex are not socially irrelevant, and anyone who thinks that they are, is extremely ignorant of anthropology.

    Another logical fallacy is the 'fallacists fallacy', which is the fallacy by which things are irrational because things have been rationalised. But humans always rationalise things, and all that matters is the usefulness of the rationalisation. As cultural beliefs are subject to natural selection, it is not the rationalisation itself but its consequences upon behaviour that must be judged as rational, and religious taboos and preferences that are widely practiced across cultures and over centuries are therefore tried and tested as practical. In contrast to this, much of secular ethics comes accross as children throwing toys out of their pram.

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