Common decency

[Lydiot]

"- So suppose we're talking about murdering white people (innocent or not). Now imaginary person Joe can say "I think murdering white people should be illegal because it's convenient, because I'm white", whereas Jessica can say "I don't think that law is necessary, because I'm Asian". See? The principle is the same as in your hypothetical argument, because both Jessica and Joe are arguing just like your hypothetical person; from the standpoint of their own situation only. There is no universality in their reasoning, only egocentricity. "

[jwocky]

@Lydiot:

So, in the '"thinks is an idiot" thing we are at thepoint where I say, "no, I don't think so" and you agree

About Atheist scripture

I completely disagree. I've never heard of Feuerbach and I'm willing to bet that none of my Atheist friends have either. By virtue of not being canonized you actually end up with a lack of tenets. Atheism at its core is just the lack of theism. Interestingly just like you have between immorality and morality amorality. A rock is amoral. It doesn't belong to either camp. An Atheist does not have to believe god does not exist, just not believe that god exists, and those two things aren't the same.

That is actually too funny, a lot of Atheists "learn" Atheism from their friends, who learned it from their friends, who learned it from their friends ... and so on ... and I end up discussing Atheism with Atheists who haven't even read the basic literature where their belief comes from. But then, I can assure you, most Muslims haven't read the Quaran either and the Bible knowledge of hardcore Bible thumpers is often scary little. Imean, what the hell, please, I had last week even Later Day Saitns missionaries at my door who obviously hadn't read the Book Mormon ... and then people wonder why IK turn my eyes and wonder "why me?"
Ookaaay, just a little starting point: Modern Atheism is mostly based on the works of writers and philosophers from the 18th and 19th centuries. Those later claimed of course to refer to older sources and basically blamed the Reformation (which happened in 16th century). Another source, that was posthumously claimed was Baruch Spinoza for the simple reason that Spinoza declared, the universe would be well able to exist without the existence of God. Which, unproven as it was, would maximal prove there is no necessity but by far not the non-existence. But the true believer takes what he gets and Atheism is no exception from that rule.
Usually, if you discuss with educated Atheists (educated about the origins of what they are talking about in terms of Atheism, come up with Thomas Hobbes or John Toland ... both actually didn't even try to prove the non-existence of God but equally created the term of "pantheism". A total different thing than "Atheism". Some will also bring up Kazimierz Lyszcynski, but then, today know as philosopher, this guy was logic-free zone when he was still a Jesuit and didn't improve after he was kicked out (not even for church critic but for some sex affairs) and even ten years after he was kicked, his works read rather like a rant for being kicked out ...
So the really first ones to take serious were Kant, Nietzsche, Hume, Marx and Feuerbach. Karl Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach are of course for many authors today rather known as the fathers of Communism, but a part of their work dealt obviously also with religion. While creating more or less a political ideology, they found, religion got in the way of a revolution. Both basically considered religion as a drug (opium) serving to keep the folks quiet and peaceful and totally unwilling to go on a violent rampage, which more or less both (Marx of course more) considered necessary to change the world according to their home-knitted ideology of Communism.
Hume, Kant and Nietzsche despite all of his occasional malignancy, are a little bit more complex. They dealt with the concept of reson and religion and followed an empiric approach. All of them criticized (but actually never proved them wrong) thze classic arguments for the existence of God. Which is kind of funny because logically, how do you prove something wrong that is already proven to be unprovable as wrong or right in the first place? So, Kant went on and asked whether metaphysical knowledge (not the existence of metaphysical existence per se) is even possible. I admit, he makes mne still scratch me head with that approach because as basic tenet, he suspects, all humans are anyway too stupid to have metaphysical knowledge. If we would accept that, you can't be an Atheist, your IQ is too high ... so, something there is wrong.
The next funny thing are Locke and Voltaire. Both of them were basically empirics which made them an early form of Atheist ... but both, for reasons of social stability still supported religion. Voltaire, in connection with the French Revolution and the chaos it caused, said

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him

Which is kind of funny, coming from him, but it is neither prove of existence of God nor of non-existence of God, just another statement of opportunism. Use religion to keep the chaos at bay.
You may also want to look into Baron d'Holbach, a French philosopher who wrote thousands of pages of rants against religion. He never touched the essential question of the existence of God though, he always tried only to prove, the world could exist without God. Still, he was definitively a modern Atheist. He couldn't prove it, but he believed firmly that God didn't exist.
So, prior and during the Napoleonic era, those philosophers and of course Napoleon himself tried to establish the Cult of Reason. Killin some ten thousand people who refused to swear off Christianity didn't help of course, and in the end Napoleon was beaten and without the power of Napoleons soldiers, Atheism had failed to become the new State Religion in France.
Since then, a lot of philosophers and politicians had used the term Atheism for their own purposes. Feuerbach, Marx, in parts Schoppenhour to establish Communist and Socialist ideologies, kind of a vehicle function. Lenin and later Stalin to kill some few million people who didn't believe in Communism and the strongly connected Atheism. Then, following the World Wars, Atheism became more of a social phenomena. Millions of people became Atheists without even knowign where it came from, just because their parent generation were Christians. In Russia, a bigger part of the next generations became Atheists because it was as part of Communism basically State Religion. In Western cultures, somewhere in thre late 70s amd early 80s, the search for reason in new age religions and cults had failed and Atheism became more of an expression of disappointment than actual a religious choice and with the socialists from the 70s slowly on the march through the institutions, now reaching first key positions, it became a necessity to declare oneself an Atheist to make career under them. Teachers in school, originally left-overs from the Hippie days started to teach Atheism in schools to little kids.
With the late 80s and even stronger in the 90s, the gap between self-proclaimed "liberals" and "conservatives" grew. Both sides took on stronger ideological attitudes and that meant logically also the inclusion of religious views (juat as we had before in Communism). Of course, the conservatives often preferred religion, the liberals no-religion. Which is a situation that, at least in the US, not so strong in Europe, lasts till today.
Bottom line is, nobody can prove the existence or the non-existence of any metaphysical being. That is why we call those things "belief". Atheists claim, they know, God doesn't exist, but in fact, they only "believe" he doesn't. Christians "believe" God exists, they don't know for sure. Muslims "believe" Allah exists, the prove is impossible, and so on and so on.
So, aside giving you some start points for your research into the subject, it is as I said, there is extensive "scripture" which also includes behavioural rules and basically Atheism is still jsut a belief, like any other. But then, all religions claim basically to be the only right one and to have alone the knowledge and all others are stupid and pagans ... so, nothing new, also not in Atheism.

What movement is that? Please let us know the name of it and where we can find statements that assert the above.

BLM Black Lives Matter

I honestly don't really understand what that has to do with what we're discussing right now. I mean, does it really have anything to do with ethics and morality as opposed to just pragmatism?

Well, wouldn't that depend on how you answer the question in my last post?

@Vincent: On the subject of well-understoof self-interest ...
See, if a politician wants to make money and has for that purpose to make laws that help little enterprises, he becomes a quite reliable factor because those who vote for him to get support for their small enterprises, can rely on him that he will do it. If not, he damages his own interests, so he won't do that. So, the most reliable candidate for a political office is the one who gets there to reach the same things, I want to reach. Any politician is ready and willign to betray his voters, but they are rarely ready to betray their own interests.

[jwocky]

Okay and on the other matters:

1.) I won't discuss God or religion or Atheism with you, Lydiot, before you have at least some of the root literature of your faith.

2.) I would like to "refudiate" (soorry, couldn't resist) your assumption that I belief "only" in a group based morale. I don't belief in any morale! Having said that, why do people think, something like "ethics" or "moral" is even necessary to do "altruistic" things? It looks very weird to me, to see the Atheist, the faithful defender or ratio over God, making the implicit claim that all logic is bad in ethical terms.

[Lydiot]

Okay and on the other matters:

1.) I won't discuss God or religion or Atheism with you, Lydiot, before you have at least some of the root literature of your faith.

Atheism is not religion, nor is it faith in the same sense as religion is.

There is no "root literature" of atheism, only writers that have written about their views on atheism. No atheists I know have based their atheist views on any particular book or canon. No atheists K know point to literature or early thinkers (i.e. centuries ago) to create arguments against theism.

It's not without irony that I see (some of) the religious vehemently advocating that atheism too is religion while in the same breath attempting to invalidate it based on lacking an objective footing to stand on, thereby indirectly and inadvertently implying their own belief is no better. Hardly a stellar argument.

Atheism is not religion. It's just that simple.

I invite you again to write down for us all to see what these Atheist tenets are that unites Atheists all over the planet, with the exception of "I am not a theist", which is the sole parameter that unites us.

2.) I would like to "refudiate" (soorry, couldn't resist) your assumption that I belief "only" in a group based morale. I don't belief in any morale! Having said that, why do people think, something like "ethics" or "moral" is even necessary to do "altruistic" things? It looks very weird to me, to see the Atheist, the faithful defender or ratio over God, making the implicit claim that all logic is bad in ethical terms.

That to me seems to be a largely semantic argument, which I don't really have a problem with because the end result is still the same, which is to say that we can quibble over the use of those words but it changes nothing: logic and reason may both explain and promote morality, but that doesn't mean that morality isn't universal, in fact it seems to say the exact opposite, which in turn is to say that local variations are mostly shallow in nature and by and large most humans subscribe to exactly the same fundamental basic morality...... because it's in our nature, and because a lot of it is logical....

[Lydiot]

What movement is that? Please let us know the name of it and where we can find statements that assert the above.

BLM Black Lives Matter

[jwocky]

Hey, how about you do a little bit research for yourself? I mean, as any good fanatic faithful, you gave me the standard lines of Atheism and denied (without any knowledge of for Atheism came up to begin with) anything that feels for you like an attack on your non-fath ... even it is clear, Atheism is just as any other religion based on belief, not provable fact. So, you just delivered a good example for the reasons why I call Atheism just another religion. I could of course now go and insult your face as hard as I can and make you raging more to make this example even clearer for every third party whoever reads this thread, I could make you, by attacking your face with mockery make your denial even clearer, but then, that is what an Atheist would do to show off for example a Christian. I am no Atheist, so ... go in piece with your faith.

If they go about their burden of whatever they said you’re doing, you pull your pistol out and you f**king bust that.

Portland BLM protest leader while heating up the protesters over speaker, speaking about cops.

I don’t give a f**k whether you knock ’em over, whether you run up on them, whatever you do, you better f**king take action!

Portland BLM protest leader on the same occasion

#BlackLivesMatter: ‘Kill A White Person, Hang Them From a Tree, Upload a Pic To Social Media’

Tweet on #BlackLivesMatter, "adorned with a picture:

However, the person who tweeted this was a few days later shot by a black perpetrator, we still wait on the BLM protests.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrNiPf4Kyxs[/youtube]
BLM activist on Youtube

http://blacklivesmatter.com/
The more or less official website of the BLM movement. If you read through it carefully, you will find, that they correctly mention that 84% of all white murder victims are killed by white perpetrators, but they don't make a similar comparison for black on black murder and they skip so cramped over the problem, that there are about as many black as white murder victims per year even whites are 72% of the population and blacks are 12%. They simply can't care less about their black brethren killed by their black brethren.

[IAHM-COL]

has somebody find the solution to unsee the seen?

I need it now.

(I'm disturbed now... and although Latino, I am white enough to live in panic from now on)

[jwocky]

Well, you should be disturbed. Hispanics are on the BLM hate list too as it sounds, you just have to wait till they are finished with "whitey" ... hey, that was from a BLM leader from Baltimore ...

[Lydiot]

Hey, how about you do a little bit research for yourself?

I do, quite regularly actually. But making a claim costs nothing, anyone can do it. If all it takes to have a reasonable discussion is making claims then we'll get nowhere. I think it's pretty well established that the onus is on the one making the claim. It's really the only reasonable way to move forward.

Atheism is just as any other religion based on belief, not provable fact.

I think you end up pointing out two very significant things above. The first one I already mentioned, but it appears it needs to be restated.

#1: "I believe [X]" is an affirmation of belief ("X").
#2: If we think that "Y" is the exact 'opposite' of "X", then one could say "I believe [Y]". It too is an affirmation of a specific belief ("Y").
#3: However, "I do not believe [X]" does not equal "I believe [Y]".

Atheism is not based on belief (#1 and #2 above), it is the absence of belief as seen in #3.

The second thing that separates the two which you touch upon above is whether or not something is provable. Having a belief without being able to prove it is what we often refer to as "faith". The very fact that the existence of god is not disprovable puts the question outside of science. But since Atheists aren't purely made up of people who have a specific belief - "God does not exist" - it's actually a fairly irrelevant issue as far as Atheism goes. It's far more interesting as far as Theism goes.

I mean, as any good fanatic faithful, you gave me the standard lines of Atheism and denied (without any knowledge of for Atheism came up to begin with) anything that feels for you like an attack on your non-fath ... even it is clear, So, you just delivered a good example for the reasons why I call Atheism just another religion. I could of course now go and insult your face as hard as I can and make you raging more to make this example even clearer for every third party whoever reads this thread, I could make you, by attacking your face with mockery make your denial even clearer, but then, that is what an Atheist would do to show off for example a Christian. I am no Atheist, so ... go in piece with your faith.

Well that was unnecessarily hostile and aggressive.

Atheism isn't a religion. Atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack of belief.

If they go about their burden of whatever they said you’re doing, you pull your pistol out and you f**king bust that.

Portland BLM protest leader while heating up the protesters over speaker, speaking about cops.

What's his name? If he's a leader in the BLM movement we should be told what his name is. No? No name? Still a leader? Ok, I'll take your word for it and that of all the websites that pop up when I search that quote.... which is to say.... you know......

http://blacklivesmatter.com/
The more or less official website of the BLM movement. If you read through it carefully, you will find, that they correctly mention that 84% of all white murder victims are killed by white perpetrators, but they don't make a similar comparison for black on black murder and they skip so cramped over the problem, that there are about as many black as white murder victims per year even whites are 72% of the population and blacks are 12%. They simply can't care less about their black brethren killed by their black brethren.

- [Only] Black Lives Matter
- Black Lives Matter [Too]

See the difference? We can look at only "Black Lives Matter" and think that one of the two words ("Only" or "Too") is missing. The context will actually make it absolutely clear which one of the two better captures the meaning of the phrase. The context is that black people are over-represented statistically when it comes to people killed by the police. Therefore, it's pretty clear to see that the phrase means "Black Lives Matter Too"; in other words not only white lives matter. That may seem obvious to you, but that's not the way some people see it in the US.

Now, you actually don't have to do too much work to see the meaning in what you're talking about either. All it takes is, again, context. The context is that the BLM movement is a reaction to a state of affairs, and the statement you're talking about is also a reaction to what has been said. When the issue of the police killing black people is brought up people like Rudy Giuliani bring up black-on-black crime. The reason BLM bring up white-on-white crime is just to point out that it's an irrelevant issue. Because the BLM movement is one that focuses on a particular issue; police killing a disproportionate amount of black people. Black-on-black crime is obviously still an issue, and black people obviously care about it. But bringing it up serves one purpose and one purpose only; it is to re-direct the conversation away from the police killing a disproportional amount of black people. By pointing out white-on-white crime, and by virtue of people that stand against BLM ignoring that issue, they actually show quite clearly how irrelevant the issue is.

BLM is about institutional racism. Black-on-black crime is about crime, period, and not racism. White-on-white crime is about crime, period, not racism. Pointing out the latter serves the purpose of pointing out the former.

How is that not obvious.

[Lydiot]

has somebody find the solution to unsee the seen?

I need it now.

(I'm disturbed now... and although Latino, I am white enough to live in panic from now on)

Neither you nor I know anything about that person. There's a tendency especially in the US for people to just post shit on the internet and put a headline on it or subtitle it without any sourcing whatsoever and then people just buy it if it affirms their already made up beliefs. And 'yes', I see this on "both" sides of the fence regardless of whether the issue is race or religion or money.

Someone says "BLM leader" in the headline and people think it must be so, because that's what it says. Is that true though? People say some dolt that makes racist statements represent Republicans for example, but is that true? How do we know? Just because someone wrote it as a headline and posted it on a blog and some more questionable other "news-blogs" reposted it?

Most of this nonsense should be treated with care as long as the clips are edited and short and without proper sourcing. This country is filled with idiots that are bigots, and so it doesn't surprise me when I see black racists, just as it doesn't surprise me when I see white ones. But to attribute their behavior as individuals to an organization requires more than a headline and a short or edited video without context.