How American Christians can stop being bullies and start winning converts

[Impaler]

Indeed it is Gallingly unconstitutional.

[Buster's Uncle]

Scientists used smartphones to test morality in the real world
Turns out, religion doesn't make you any more moral
The Verge
By Arielle Duhaime-Ross on September 11, 2014 02:01 pm



We’d all like to think that morality is cut and dry. But the truth is that many factors come into play when determining what each individual’s morality rests upon. Conservatives, for instance, tend to hold loyalty and purity in the highest regard, whereas liberals are more likely to base moral acts on caring and fairness. Yet, the only reason we know that these trends exist is because scientists tested various scenarios in controlled, laboratory settings to see how various groups of people react.

But a new study published today in Science has taken morality research out of the lab and into the streets, which means that we finally have an idea of how often humans encounter morally relevant situations and dilemmas in their every day lives. And, as it turns out, there's a lot more moral overlap between various groups — religious or nonreligious, for instance — than researchers previously thought.

"The methodology is really novel," says Dan Wisneski, a psychologist at Saint Peter's University and a co-author of the study. "A lot of previous moral and ethics studies have taken place in the lab, in a controlled setting, and although these are important, we wanted to take those findings and compare it against people's everyday moral reality."

In the study, 1252 American and Canadian adults answered surveys about their experiences with morality for a period of three days. The surveys were initiated by text message five times a day at random intervals, and each provided a link to a survey that asked participants if they had experienced, witnessed, performed or learned of a moral or immoral act in the last hour. If they had, they were asked to describe that event. And each time they submitted a survey, they were entered in a contest to win a prize.

Once the answers were submitted, the researchers assigned it a single, specific category, all of which were based on the "moral foundations theory" — a theory that bases morality on eight basic foundations, including fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty.

"We were able to take those open ended responses and code them," Wisneski says, by assigning a foundation to each description. "We tried to pick the ones that we thought fitted best," Wisneski says, but that wasn't always easy. "For example, if we decided to code ‘I cheated on my spouse,’ then we coded it as disloyalty. But it could have been coded as dishonesty as well." Ultimately, he explains, the research team opted to be consistent in their coding and to stick to the foundations’ definitions.

And the results they’ve obtained so far are pretty revealing. For one thing, they found that the moral acts that people described tended to be based on caring, whereas immoral acts were more diverse and centered around harm, unfairness and dishonesty. The researchers also found that regardless of religious or nonreligious affiliation, participants responded positively to the survey and described a morally relevant situation about 29 percent of the time. "The main finding is that morally relevant phenomena happens fairly often," Wisneski says. "And being religious, or nonreligious, doesn’t change that frequency."

Moreover, the study was able to confirm what previous lab studies have found: that being the target of a morally positive act makes people more likely to commit one themselves, whereas committing a moral act subsequently gives people the license to do something morally reprehensible — a phenomenon called "moral self-licensing."

"The fact that these data bear out this effect is in everyday life is very interesting," says David Pizarro, a psychologist at Cornell University who didn't participate in the study. "It seems as if good moral deeds spread across people more than within people." Still, Pizarro is skeptical of the self-reporting aspect of the experiment. "Some of the main findings might not be due to the actual frequency of these acts in the real world, but simply to the fact that people are likely to report some acts instead of others."

Wisneski says that this type of criticism is perfectly valid, but counters it by stating that there was no real incentive to present oneself in a favorable light. For example, some people readily admitted to infidelity during the three-day period. Moreover, he says, "some might say that by doing this study, we’re bringing [morality] to mind a lot," and therefore priming people to think of their life in moral terms more than they normally would. But in reality, the participants were "incentivized to under-report moral acts" because answering the survey negatively didn't take as long, and they were still entered in the contest. Thus, Wisneski thinks that it’s likely that the results are pretty representative of what humans of a certain economic status — humans who own smartphones, as was required of the study’s participants — experience on a regular basis.

"This is a novel, thoughtful and informative study," says Fiery Cushman, a psychologist at Harvard University. "The findings mostly corroborate theories that emerged from laboratory-based research, but there are a few surprises," like the fact that religious affiliation didn’t predict morally positive actions.

The researchers now plan to take an even deeper look into the huge data sets they've gathered. They'd like to look at other factors that might come into play in everyday life, such as socio-economic status. And other, quirkier questions might also be worth investigating, says lead author and University of Cologne psychologist Wilhelm Hofmann. We "did not look at correlates between smartphone [platforms] and demographics or predictors of moral experiences," he wrote in an email to The Verge, but that would "definitely be something to consider in future analyses." For now, however, we have to live without knowing if Windows phone users commit more moral acts than iPhone users.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/11/6133619/in-the-real-world-being-religious-doesnt-make-you-commit-more-morally

[Impaler]

Parent-child is a much weaker relationship, though.  A better analogy is: Can one make a sapient robot while still reserving for oneself the right to destroy it?

I find that robot analogy to be morally identical to Parent-child example for virtually all conceivable actions (for example I would have the responsibility to care for the robot as I would a child), so I find it odd that you feel it is a better analogy.

But just to make it clear the answer is still NO, Dr. Noonian Soong could not ethically kill Lt. Commander Data.

[Impaler]

My previous point stand, but to be frank killing for something that for all intents and purposes is a matter of faith- or to be a lot more crude and brash, imaginary/existent only in the eyes of their believers, is psychotic in my eyes.

How dependent is that position on said god actually being imaginary?

Speaking just for myself I'd say the actual existence of the god is irrelevant.

First it is psychotic for the individual in question to presume that their 'faith' tells them what this god wants done
Second if said god actually wanted these crimes to be committed then the god itself would be immoral and unworthy of worship
Third the act of surrendering ones will to some 'higher power' is always unjustified because responsibility for an unethical act can not be transferred to another entity, every individual must judge for themselves every act they do.

To put it quite bluntly if a Nazi death-camp guard can't use the excuse that they were 'Just following orders' then neither can a religious zealot use the excuse that 'god commanded it'.  In the end what matters is did individuals act ethically given what they knew, and the knowledge that matters is not if the authority figure exists or not, but the difference between right and wrong.

[Yitzi]

Parent-child is a much weaker relationship, though.  A better analogy is: Can one make a sapient robot while still reserving for oneself the right to destroy it?

I find that robot analogy to be morally identical to Parent-child example for virtually all conceivable actions (for example I would have the responsibility to care for the robot as I would a child), so I find it odd that you feel it is a better analogy.

I don't consider it identical, since making a robot is a more purposeful act, more akin to making any other item (with all its implications on rights) than to conceiving a child.

My previous point stand, but to be frank killing for something that for all intents and purposes is a matter of faith- or to be a lot more crude and brash, imaginary/existent only in the eyes of their believers, is psychotic in my eyes.

How dependent is that position on said god actually being imaginary?

Speaking just for myself I'd say the actual existence of the god is irrelevant.

First it is psychotic for the individual in question to presume that their 'faith' tells them what this god wants done

If it's based purely on faith, probably.  If it's based on the laws of the religion, believed to have been given directly and explicitly from said god, not so much.  If (theoretically speaking) the order was given directly by said god, not at all.

Second if said god actually wanted these crimes to be committed then the god itself would be immoral and unworthy of worship

Not so clear; there are times when the greater good would be better served by such actions.  A sufficiently knowledgeable and intelligent god would be able to determine those times, at which point it becomes a question of "does the end justify the means", or more generally deontological vs. utilitarian ethics.  (Although I would argue that a creator god has a special status in deontological ethics.)

Third the act of surrendering ones will to some 'higher power' is always unjustified because responsibility for an unethical act can not be transferred to another entity, every individual must judge for themselves every act they do.

Sort of true.  Responsibility for an unethical act cannot be transferred to another entity; however, there are cases where the ethicality of an act depends on the situation, and what orders one was given and by whom are part of that situation.  (Of course, most cases of "just following orders" are not of this sort; one of the major guidelines to use is that if someone does not have the right to do something themselves, them ordering you to do it does not make it ethical outside of some highly contrived cases, whereas if they do have that right they can usually transfer that right to you.)

[Buster's Uncle]

Christian conservatives have a terrifying new bogeyman: The Christian leftist
And they're right to be scared...
The Week
By Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig  | September 26, 2014   



There's really no divide.  (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) 



A resurgence of the Christian left may seem a distant hope, but the idea of it has certainly spooked the Christian right. Such is the impetus for Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel & Damaging the Faith. It's a curious book from accomplished evangelical author Chelsen Vicari, who aims in it to address a "crisis" in evangelicalism — namely the rise of a Christian left.

Vicari's book is neither a principled critique of Christian leftism writ large nor a principled defense of a Christian right-wing; on the contrary, it's very narrowly focused on American Christians who align with the Democratic Party versus American Christians who align with the Republican Party. It's in favor of the latter, of course, but in so doing it visits a number of tired arguments that are only tenuously linked to Christianity, and are more thoroughly associated with secular partisan politics.

One such issue is the nebulously defined question of "big government." Though "big government" can as easily mean a carceral state, a surveillance state, a welfare state, or all three, Vicari appears to take it to mean a state with fairly modest provisions for the poor: food stamps, healthcare, and little more.

"The evangelical left," Vicari writes, "confuses the church's mission to further God's kingdom with unlimited big government." In arguing that Christians should not create states that provide social insurance for poor people, Vicari cites Jerry Falwell: "Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor."

In other words, Vicari's complaint with the Christian left is not that their impulse is wrong — she agrees that all Christians, right and left, should recognize an obligation to support the poor as special figures of God's concern — but that the process they envision is wrong. Taxes, she argues, are wrong on the merits because they constitute "taking" from one person for the support of another, rather than relying upon voluntary charity. From this position one would expect a generally libertarian view: that the state is not an object of moral errand-running, and that taxes, being an inherently evil institution, should be used as seldom as possible, and never to undertake specifically moral projects.

This would be a consistent position. But it's not Vicari's position. And her inconsistency here highlights a general problem with right-wing Christians who claim taxes are an immoral method of carrying out moral projects.

In a later chapter, Vicari takes up a spirited defense of American military support for Israel. She argues that "American Christians… have a part in the Abrahamic covenant," noting that God said, "He would treat nations according to the way they treat Israel." Therefore, by her lights, "defending [Israel] is the Christian people's responsibility" — and by this she means Christians acting through the apparatus of the United States' military, funded by taxes. She does not argue, for instance, that Christians are obligated to pool their resources and privately fund a military defense of Israel.

If her distinction between the obligation of individuals to care for the poor and the obligation of states to care for Israel rests on the word "nation," she could look to Matthew 25:31 (the famous parable of sheep and goats) to see that Christ will equally judge all nations based on their treatment of the poor, sick, foreign, and similarly oppressed.

If Christians should always resist "big government," then what's bigger than a government that not only militarily defends its country's own borders, but those of a totally independent sovereign country? Or, if Christians should only support big government insofar as it's used in defense of people who are important to God, why wouldn't that extend to the poor, who win so much of Jesus' special attention? There is a reason that libertarians have an embattled relationship with hardline Republicans when it comes to Israel, and this conflict is why those differing accounts of the right use of the state are so hard to square up. The question is even more nonsensical when framed in theological terms.

And yet perhaps this tension is what occasions such a book. If the old guard on the partisan Christian right envisions itself to be crumbling, there's nothing more apt than a forceful restatement of terms, preferably with a fresh face. But if it's crumbling, it's because the foundations are weak, and illustrating that inadvertently isn't going to make its last gasps any more graceful. Far from being the death knell for the American Christian left, Vicari's book might be little more than a signal that this is the Christian left's moment to rise.

http://theweek.com/article/index/268704/christian-conservatives-have-a-terrifying-new-bogeyman-the-christian-leftist

[Yitzi]

Christian conservatives have a terrifying new bogeyman: The Christian leftist
And they're right to be scared...
The Week
By Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig  | September 26, 2014   



There's really no divide.  (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) 



A resurgence of the Christian left may seem a distant hope, but the idea of it has certainly spooked the Christian right. Such is the impetus for Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel & Damaging the Faith. It's a curious book from accomplished evangelical author Chelsen Vicari, who aims in it to address a "crisis" in evangelicalism — namely the rise of a Christian left.

Vicari's book is neither a principled critique of Christian leftism writ large nor a principled defense of a Christian right-wing; on the contrary, it's very narrowly focused on American Christians who align with the Democratic Party versus American Christians who align with the Republican Party. It's in favor of the latter, of course, but in so doing it visits a number of tired arguments that are only tenuously linked to Christianity, and are more thoroughly associated with secular partisan politics.

One such issue is the nebulously defined question of "big government." Though "big government" can as easily mean a carceral state, a surveillance state, a welfare state, or all three, Vicari appears to take it to mean a state with fairly modest provisions for the poor: food stamps, healthcare, and little more.

"The evangelical left," Vicari writes, "confuses the church's mission to further God's kingdom with unlimited big government." In arguing that Christians should not create states that provide social insurance for poor people, Vicari cites Jerry Falwell: "Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor."

In other words, Vicari's complaint with the Christian left is not that their impulse is wrong — she agrees that all Christians, right and left, should recognize an obligation to support the poor as special figures of God's concern — but that the process they envision is wrong. Taxes, she argues, are wrong on the merits because they constitute "taking" from one person for the support of another, rather than relying upon voluntary charity. From this position one would expect a generally libertarian view: that the state is not an object of moral errand-running, and that taxes, being an inherently evil institution, should be used as seldom as possible, and never to undertake specifically moral projects.

This would be a consistent position. But it's not Vicari's position. And her inconsistency here highlights a general problem with right-wing Christians who claim taxes are an immoral method of carrying out moral projects.

In a later chapter, Vicari takes up a spirited defense of American military support for Israel. She argues that "American Christians… have a part in the Abrahamic covenant," noting that God said, "He would treat nations according to the way they treat Israel." Therefore, by her lights, "defending [Israel] is the Christian people's responsibility" — and by this she means Christians acting through the apparatus of the United States' military, funded by taxes. She does not argue, for instance, that Christians are obligated to pool their resources and privately fund a military defense of Israel.

If her distinction between the obligation of individuals to care for the poor and the obligation of states to care for Israel rests on the word "nation," she could look to Matthew 25:31 (the famous parable of sheep and goats) to see that Christ will equally judge all nations based on their treatment of the poor, sick, foreign, and similarly oppressed.

If Christians should always resist "big government," then what's bigger than a government that not only militarily defends its country's own borders, but those of a totally independent sovereign country? Or, if Christians should only support big government insofar as it's used in defense of people who are important to God, why wouldn't that extend to the poor, who win so much of Jesus' special attention? There is a reason that libertarians have an embattled relationship with hardline Republicans when it comes to Israel, and this conflict is why those differing accounts of the right use of the state are so hard to square up. The question is even more nonsensical when framed in theological terms.

And yet perhaps this tension is what occasions such a book. If the old guard on the partisan Christian right envisions itself to be crumbling, there's nothing more apt than a forceful restatement of terms, preferably with a fresh face. But if it's crumbling, it's because the foundations are weak, and illustrating that inadvertently isn't going to make its last gasps any more graceful. Far from being the death knell for the American Christian left, Vicari's book might be little more than a signal that this is the Christian left's moment to rise.

http://theweek.com/article/index/268704/christian-conservatives-have-a-terrifying-new-bogeyman-the-christian-leftist

On the plus side, maybe fear of the Christian left will get them to focus on strengthening the religion clauses in the First Amendment rather than trying to get around them...

[Buster's Uncle]

Maybe they'll realize that one can be saved and convicted, and prefer Jesus' talk about mercy and charity -the bulk of his teachings- in their public policy - to the extent that has anything to do with public policy in the first place.

Not enough of that Christian left to go around, if you ask me...

[JarlWolf]

I don't consider it identical, since making a robot is a more purposeful act, more akin to making any other item (with all its implications on rights) than to conceiving a child.

Depends upon the perspective of the creator. I can certainly tell you many people purposefully have children, and an unfortunate portion of them is less of love and more of a distinct purpose for said child- such as receiving welfare money or to have a helping hand /source of income. Not as much anymore these days but it still happens.

Not so clear; there are times when the greater good would be better served by such actions.  A sufficiently knowledgeable and intelligent god would be able to determine those times, at which point it becomes a question of "does the end justify the means", or more generally deontological vs. utilitarian ethics.  (Although I would argue that a creator god has a special status in deontological ethics.)

To be quite frank clarity isn't the question here- when someone is committing a genocide and performing horrific acts, regardless if the god is knowledgeable and intelligent I am going to resist said actions and strike the follower of said god down before he kills everything I know and love. Hitler was a knowledgeable and intelligent man, but that didn't mean he wasn't a sociopath Nazi bent on genocide and the political domination of Europe and beyond.

Not saying your god is this; but it matters not who gives the order to do such things, only what the order is. I'd treat Communists who intended to do mass murder of innocent people with the same attitude- there is necessary wars to fight for the survival of your cause like the Russian Civil war against real enemies, and then there is instances of pure sociopathic powerplay like the holodomor, or when the Khmer Rouge started fertilizing their fields with the blood of innocent people just because they were educated beyond a certain point.

If their intention is the mass slaughter and harm of a population then its no excuse regardless of their creed. The only time this is even remotely justifiable is when said population has the exact same intentions and the two cannot tolerate each other whatsoever, and the destruction of one is inevitable. And in those unfortunate circumstances I'd say that's less of genocide, and more of total war. Sometimes one does have to spill blood, innocent blood- but if its genocide of a race purely for idealism or religion causes, or greed... only survival is a valid excuse in my eyes, pure bitter survival of yourself and those of your party. Ugly as it was in the instances of the Civil war for example and the Patriotic War, the majority of the people dying were a legitimate and active threat for the most part, actively trying to undermine and eliminate the Bolshevik and Communist revolution and those associated with it. It was kill or die, and we didn't say die.

Sort of true.  Responsibility for an unethical act cannot be transferred to another entity; however, there are cases where the ethicality of an act depends on the situation, and what orders one was given and by whom are part of that situation.  (Of course, most cases of "just following orders" are not of this sort; one of the major guidelines to use is that if someone does not have the right to do something themselves, them ordering you to do it does not make it ethical outside of some highly contrived cases, whereas if they do have that right they can usually transfer that right to you.)

This I agree with- sometimes you do have to do harsh actions, sometimes as stated before blood need be spilt. But the reasoning for it must be looked at before you do it, and if in my eyes, you are exterminating life merely because your "god" or ideal says so- then that reasoning in my opinion is needless bloodthirst. In Communist ideology in the original works of Engel and Marx, it never once says to outright kill and eradicate the bourgeoisie, those who exploit the Proletarians. It does state to reprieve their asset, to take from them and distribute their excessive wealth to the masses appropriately, and to setup a system of proper distribution of wealth- but never once did it say it was necessary to kill these people. Bourgeoisie are people too who have needs and abilities of their own: It's just they took more then what they needed and may or may not have been contributing to the best of their ability. 

A religion or ideal on the other hand- if its aim is to murder then that religion is something I think that is deserving of any hatred and backlash it receives. This is why I highly dislike Nazi variant of Fascism and Social Darwinism, and more militant forms of Islam and Christianity, at least some of the reasons...

Religions fighting for their survival however... that I have no qualm with, as stated prior in previous post. Judaism has had a long rocky road defending itself from other antagonizing faiths, Islam and Christianity have been in a battle for supremacy for hundreds, if not thousands of years by this point in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Many of those conflicts were not of survival but obviously people have to defend themselves when one goes to war with them.

[Yitzi]

I don't consider it identical, since making a robot is a more purposeful act, more akin to making any other item (with all its implications on rights) than to conceiving a child.

Depends upon the perspective of the creator. I can certainly tell you many people purposefully have children, and an unfortunate portion of them is less of love and more of a distinct purpose for said child- such as receiving welfare money or to have a helping hand /source of income. Not as much anymore these days but it still happens.

It's still not as purposeful/"creative" an act as making a robot, though.

Not so clear; there are times when the greater good would be better served by such actions.  A sufficiently knowledgeable and intelligent god would be able to determine those times, at which point it becomes a question of "does the end justify the means", or more generally deontological vs. utilitarian ethics.  (Although I would argue that a creator god has a special status in deontological ethics.)

To be quite frank clarity isn't the question here- when someone is committing a genocide and performing horrific acts, regardless if the god is knowledgeable and intelligent I am going to resist said actions and strike the follower of said god down before he kills everything I know and love. Hitler was a knowledgeable and intelligent man, but that didn't mean he wasn't a sociopath Nazi bent on genocide and the political domination of Europe and beyond.

That's valid; God may have reasons for believing that in a particular case genocide is in fact for the greater good...but unless God clearly and unambiguously tells you otherwise (and "know you're not hallucinating" is an important part of "clearly and unambiguously", so we're essentially talking about a scientifically provable god at this point), you should act on what you can know, which is to stop that genocide.

Not saying your god is this; but it matters not who gives the order to do such things, only what the order is. I'd treat Communists who intended to do mass murder of innocent people with the same attitude- there is necessary wars to fight for the survival of your cause like the Russian Civil war against real enemies, and then there is instances of pure sociopathic powerplay like the holodomor, or when the Khmer Rouge started fertilizing their fields with the blood of innocent people just because they were educated beyond a certain point.

I think that is a fair analogy, although the people behind the Russian Civil War were neither as wise/knowledgeable as God nor as entitled to ignore the deontological side of things.  But certainly the distinction between truly necessary/justified and pure sociopathic powerplay is a useful one when considering what religious people tend to do.

If their intention is the mass slaughter and harm of a population then its no excuse regardless of their creed. The only time this is even remotely justifiable is when said population has the exact same intentions and the two cannot tolerate each other whatsoever, and the destruction of one is inevitable.

What if the other population does not explicitly have the exact same intentions, but is otherwise causing equivalent amounts of harm?

Sort of true.  Responsibility for an unethical act cannot be transferred to another entity; however, there are cases where the ethicality of an act depends on the situation, and what orders one was given and by whom are part of that situation.  (Of course, most cases of "just following orders" are not of this sort; one of the major guidelines to use is that if someone does not have the right to do something themselves, them ordering you to do it does not make it ethical outside of some highly contrived cases, whereas if they do have that right they can usually transfer that right to you.)

This I agree with- sometimes you do have to do harsh actions, sometimes as stated before blood need be spilt. But the reasoning for it must be looked at before you do it, and if in my eyes, you are exterminating life merely because your "god" or ideal says so- then that reasoning in my opinion is needless bloodthirst.

What if the reasoning for you is "I don't know, but someone else, who's in a better position than me to know and shares my values, says it needs to be done"?

And what if the reasoning is "they did and continue to do X, which is really wrong, and the only way to stop it is to kill them"?

Finally, we get back to the question of the balance between utilitarian morality (under which needless bloodthirst is bad) and deontological (under which a creator god may have the right anyway.)

[JarlWolf]

It's still not as purposeful/"creative" an act as making a robot, though.

Debatable, still.
Ever hear of story of Pinocchio? What if the creator only wanted a son 
And on that logic, isn't this god you speak of more or less in the same line of that? Created us for the purpose of.. creating us, and then decided he wants to be loved by his own creations, and if we don't and don't live by his rules he'll send us to a place of fire and brimstone (and this is for the majority of Abrahamic faiths. I'm aware some forms of Judaism, especially older ones actually don't believe in an afterlife). That's one of the things I find a little psychotic about said god...

That's valid; God may have reasons for believing that in a particular case genocide is in fact for the greater good...but unless God clearly and unambiguously tells you otherwise (and "know you're not hallucinating" is an important part of "clearly and unambiguously", so we're essentially talking about a scientifically provable god at this point), you should act on what you can know, which is to stop that genocide.

And if I get a clear sign from god to kill my neighbor, im seriously going to ask him for weeks supply of vodka and cognac. Maybe a crapload of money and an offshore banking account to go with it too.

And if he wants me to commit genocide? I am going to ignore this madman in the sky and not follow suit, his cosmic holiness be damned.

I think that is a fair analogy, although the people behind the Russian Civil War were neither as wise/knowledgeable as God nor as entitled to ignore the deontological side of things.  But certainly the distinction between truly necessary/justified and pure sociopathic powerplay is a useful one when considering what religious people tend to do.

Under whose judgement were they more or less "wise/knowledgeable" then your god? And last I checked the Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims weren't any better then the Bolsheviks, and in many case- were actually worse in their actions and judgement. If they were truly wise and knowledge, you'd think with all that foreign funding from the western powers and auxiliaries from other countries that they'd be able to stamp out our little revolution with their "wise and knowledgeable god." But last I checked, we won the war, they didn't. Unless of course you are saying your God is communist, which is hilarious.

What if the other population does not explicitly have the exact same intentions, but is otherwise causing equivalent amounts of harm?

If one is defending themselves against extinction, no matter the intention of the other party, they have a right to fight back. One is entitled to defend themselves in a war or climate of war, there is no question of that. This is why capitalists fight communists, and while I despise capitalism I have never blamed them for fighting back when they are attacked by a communist, even if our intentions were never to outright kill them.

What if the reasoning for you is "I don't know, but someone else, who's in a better position than me to know and shares my values, says it needs to be done"?

Then you seriously need to think about who you are taking orders from and seek the truth yourself. We aren't sheep, and we should stop acting like it. And this is coming from military man, whose followed orders to kill people, I've never once blindly followed an order to kill someone and never would I actively follow an order of pure murderous genocide. I don't know what stereotypes you hold of the Russian army but we aren't anymore bloodthirsty murderers then any other established army, Soviet or not.

And what if the reasoning is "they did and continue to do X, which is really wrong, and the only way to stop it is to kill them"?

If X is bloodthirsty, murderous genocide and they keep doing it, you eliminate them before they can continue to carry it out. A war crime is a war crime, no matter who it is.

Finally, we get back to the question of the balance between utilitarian morality (under which needless bloodthirst is bad) and deontological (under which a creator god may have the right anyway.)

In this argument deontological isn't logical to me and I quite frankly think, even if not intended to be, an excuse for murder and conquest. Utilitarian logic at least presents you with an argument everyone can comprehend and agree upon, I don't believe in your god and I don't fathom any answer given by your god- because your god can't speak to me and in all blunt honesty can't speak because he may not simply exist. No offence meant, there is no issue believing in your god and worshipping him; but that's just how I view things.

Edit: If I appear rude in this post- not my intention. I'm just very blunt and brash... so apologies in advance if I have offended.

[Yitzi]

It's still not as purposeful/"creative" an act as making a robot, though.

Debatable, still.
Ever hear of story of Pinocchio? What if the creator only wanted a son 

It is still an act of craftsmanship, not of biology.

And on that logic, isn't this god you speak of more or less in the same line of that? Created us for the purpose of.. creating us, and then decided he wants to be loved by his own creations, and if we don't and don't live by his rules he'll send us to a place of fire and brimstone (and this is for the majority of Abrahamic faiths. I'm aware some forms of Judaism, especially older ones actually don't believe in an afterlife). That's one of the things I find a little psychotic about said god...

What, wanting what is due Him?  And barring the most extreme cases (e.g. Hitler), that "fire and brimstone" is only temporary.

And if I get a clear sign from god to kill my neighbor, im seriously going to ask him for weeks supply of vodka and cognac. Maybe a crapload of money and an offshore banking account to go with it too.

And He might say no...but I don't see any harm in asking.  Though a clear sign that isn't clear to everyone isn't clear enough.

And if he wants me to commit genocide? I am going to ignore this madman in the sky and not follow suit, his cosmic holiness be damned.

What if He explains how it is necessary to prevent even worse things?

I think that is a fair analogy, although the people behind the Russian Civil War were neither as wise/knowledgeable as God nor as entitled to ignore the deontological side of things.  But certainly the distinction between truly necessary/justified and pure sociopathic powerplay is a useful one when considering what religious people tend to do.

Under whose judgement were they more or less "wise/knowledgeable" then your god?

The only judgement that matters here is that of reality.  Obviously, you don't believe that God is wise or knowledgeable (or even existent) in reality, but we're discussing the implications if He is.

If they were truly wise and knowledge

The question isn't what they are; the question is what God is.

Unless of course you are saying your God is communist, which is hilarious.

I don't think He is so foolish as to take any "pure" economic theory as the best, but He does seem to favor a small amount of communism mixed in with an overall capitalistic approach, and probably prefers the most extreme forms of communism (if only economic aspects are discussed) to the most extreme forms of capitalism.

If one is defending themselves against extinction, no matter the intention of the other party, they have a right to fight back. One is entitled to defend themselves in a war or climate of war, there is no question of that. This is why capitalists fight communists, and while I despise capitalism I have never blamed them for fighting back when they are attacked by a communist, even if our intentions were never to outright kill them.

What if the danger to oneself is less than extinction, but the harm to the world as a whole is greater than extinction of one group?

Then you seriously need to think about who you are taking orders from and seek the truth yourself.

Sometimes that isn't possible; no human can know everything.

I've never once blindly followed an order to kill someone

Blindly, no, but what about in the service of a strategy whose goals you understood but whose method you did not?

And what if the reasoning is "they did and continue to do X, which is really wrong, and the only way to stop it is to kill them"?

If X is bloodthirsty, murderous genocide and they keep doing it, you eliminate them before they can continue to carry it out. A war crime is a war crime, no matter who it is.

And if it isn't a war crime, but is still fairly bad?  (Let's take human sacrifice as an example.)

In this argument deontological isn't logical to me and I quite frankly think, even if not intended to be, an excuse for murder and conquest.

I would disagree, but that would explain why my initial attempts at a deontological approach failed.  Since I follow both (deontological for normative ethics and utilitarian for virtue-based questions), let's agree to disagree on the relevance of the deontological side of things and discuss the utilitarian side:

Imagine we live in the far future, where they have something very much like Asimov's psychohistory: A mathematically based, and scientifically proven, manner of predicting the future, and consequences of certain actions, with high probability.  It is very computationally intensive, though, to the point where only governments can afford the necessary computing power.  Fortunately, the government is a benevolent one that uses psychohistory to ensure it stays benevolent and for the benefit of the populace.

Now this government, based on their psychohistory, tells you and a bunch of other people that, for the net long-term benefit of the world as a whole, a particular ethnic cleansing has to take place (i.e. a particular group forced out of the areas in which they live, and killed if they refuse to go.)  They assure you that the long-term benefit will vastly outweigh the harm done.  According to utilitarian morality, should you do it?

I don't believe in your god

Can you at least consider the (counterfactual according to you) case in which He did exist?

Edit: If I appear rude in this post- not my intention. I'm just very blunt and brash... so apologies in advance if I have offended.

I can tell when someone is trolling and being needlessly offensive, and you are not.  I'm fairly blunt too.

[JarlWolf]

In the case of such a futuristic government, and if they asked me to do an ethnic cleansing on that scale I'd need to be shown the evidence myself before I'd do it. They'd need to convince me first and properly explain why im doing such a horrible thing-

If in the context of a god showed me the evidence as well, and showed me the reasoning behind it and the logic, and the results of doing and not doing it, I'd consider it. But again, they really have to define what this long term benefit is, what the threat of this group is and so forth.

It matters not who, who gives me the order but why they are, their reasoning and what the order actually is. And if said group is a violent threat to the survival of the rest, then that's valid reasoning. Its cruel, its cold and I don't quite frankly like it but I could understand it, and if given that sufficient evidence, carry out with it. They'd really have to define what this "long term benefit" was because if it wasn't something urgent then then I'd flatly disagree to it. I do not support fascism.

Humans aren't all knowing, but we can still look into something before we march forward with it. When I was in the military and I was ordered to do rather... horrible things I first asked the premise of it when we were being debriefed and reasoning, why it was essential. It got explained to me to a reasonable level- military's aren't a democracy and there is a chain of command but when you're asked to do certain things you have a right as a human being to know why to a certain extent.

Said government would still need to provide me that, or said god would as well.

As for a strategy whose goals I understood and method I did not- if I didn't know their method I wouldn't be on the field fighting for them, now would I? And carrying out said methods. I'm no stranger to bloodshed, Yitzi. I've seen it first hand and personal and done some rather terrible things to people, but never once have I done flat out murder of a populace or civilians in the manner of a deathsqaud. To be quite frank that was the type of men I was fighting, religious extremists who believed in slaughtering whole villages and towns of people because their god gave them an objective to do so- regardless of their logic they needed to be stopped and killed for their actions. Needless to say you can probably understand why I have such a vitriolic distrust for religion in general and outright hatred of said extremist groups- I've lost friends and colleagues on that front.

As for things like human sacrifice- it'd depend on the premise of it. If the subject of said sacrifice is willingly giving up their life to be sacrificed, as silly as that sounds to either you or me... that's their own free will. But if its a captive being ripped asunder for the pleasure of their captor's gods or god... I am simply just going to blast a bullet through the brains of their captors and get that captive out of there, their religious beliefs of no importance to me. When their faith is meant to outright harm people like that, that religion deserves any hatred or backlash it receives.

It's why historically im not so sympathetic to the Aztec's when the Spanish Conquistadors blasted through their cities looting them, because even though the Spaniards weren't knights in shining armour themselves of good virtue, anything but really, the Aztecs were hated and feared for their ruthless sacrificial practices by all the locals. It's why the Spaniards had loads of support from local native groups when taking the Aztecs down.

Also, on another note- I consider human sacrifice in that context a war crime. Religious association of no important regard, it does not matter when it comes to that.

[Yitzi]

In the case of such a futuristic government, and if they asked me to do an ethnic cleansing on that scale I'd need to be shown the evidence myself before I'd do it. They'd need to convince me first and properly explain why im doing such a horrible thing-

So in my scenario (where the evidence involves calculations that you don't have the resources to carry out yourself, and probably lack the mathematical background to even understand), you wouldn't do it even though it would be a net good?

They'd really have to define what this "long term benefit" was because if it wasn't something urgent then then I'd flatly disagree to it. I do not support fascism.

If you wouldn't do it based on a non-urgent long term benefit, that implies you aren't a pure utilitarian.  You already said you don't subscribe to deontological ethics...so what is your moral system?

Humans aren't all knowing, but we can still look into something before we march forward with it. When I was in the military and I was ordered to do rather... horrible things I first asked the premise of it when we were being debriefed and reasoning, why it was essential. It got explained to me to a reasonable level- military's aren't a democracy and there is a chain of command but when you're asked to do certain things you have a right as a human being to know why to a certain extent.

To a certain extent.  But of course "more than you are intellectually able to handle" (and everybody has that point somewhere) is beyond that reasonable extent.  So what happens when the "meat" of the explanation lies in that area?

As for a strategy whose goals I understood and method I did not- if I didn't know their method I wouldn't be on the field fighting for them, now would I?

Really?  If a particular city was critical to the strategy, but you didn't understand why and attempts to explain it failed due to your not being a specialist in military theory, you wouldn't fight to take that city?

And carrying out said methods. I'm no stranger to bloodshed, Yitzi. I've seen it first hand and personal and done some rather terrible things to people, but never once have I done flat out murder of a populace or civilians in the manner of a deathsqaud.

Which is a good thing, as I'm fairly certain that you were not fighting for a government with the capability to judge accurately that such an action is a net good.

Needless to say you can probably understand why I have such a vitriolic distrust for religion in general and outright hatred of said extremist groups- I've lost friends and colleagues on that front.[/qupte]

Indeed; however, that does not change the fact that one can consider a situation in which those extremist groups are in the right.  It's just a pretty safe bet that the real world is not such a situation.

As for things like human sacrifice- it'd depend on the premise of it. If the subject of said sacrifice is willingly giving up their life to be sacrificed, as silly as that sounds to either you or me... that's their own free will. But if its a captive being ripped asunder for the pleasure of their captor's gods or god... I am simply just going to blast a bullet through the brains of their captors and get that captive out of there, their religious beliefs of no importance to me.

Let's say it's child sacrifice, i.e. the subject of sacrifice is the son or daughter of the person doing the sacrifice.

And what if there wasn't just one or two people doing it, but a whole civilization?  Would you be willing to destroy that civilization and its culture in order to put a stop to the practice?

[JarlWolf]

Yitzi- I learned military theory so I could understand strategic importance. You learn a basic degree of it even as a conscript, and I was a university educated military man- so I understood premise of situations I was involved in.

Even a grunt is educated to a point, and an educated military force, a smart military force- is much more valuable then just blind simpletons who can't read. Its why the Congolese movements against Mobutu failed due to the huge amount of superstition and lack of education- there was a lack of cohesion in their military, their troops did not understand the reasoning for their orders and they referred to age old practices that simply did NOT work when it came to modern warfare.

So in my scenario (where the evidence involves calculations that you don't have the resources to carry out yourself, and probably lack the mathematical background to even understand), you wouldn't do it even though it would be a net good?

If they can't explain it in terms I can understand, a relatively intelligent military man, then their credibility is questionable, don't you think?

If you wouldn't do it based on a non-urgent long term benefit, that implies you aren't a pure utilitarian.  You already said you don't subscribe to deontological ethics...so what is your moral system?

I never said I was a pure utilitarian. I just said I don't follow your logic when it comes to a god- my morality is based on a few basic concepts. How necessary it is to perform and action, and the consequences of it- sure the net benefit long term may be very good to eliminate an entire race, but the short term drawbacks would lead to massive problems and lashback, ones that I quite frankly may not be able to live with.

Mathematics and calculations can change if the conditions of the equation change, Yitzi, and humans are not perfect and 2+2 does not always equal 4 in a sense. Sometimes it will equal 3 when you input human error, and said operation can horribly backfire too or fail. And then what are you left with? An outraged populace that is determined to destroy you, now.

So, how necessary is something, the consequences, and also the amount of suffering it's going to inflict. And one of the other important things when it comes to my morality is, the utilitarian part- how much progress would such an action yield, and at what cost? If I were a businessman, I could say cut the wages of my employee's in half legally because they were at a different standard before, which would save me up a lot of money to spend on financing the company and buying new equipment, maybe even open up a new factory or something. But here's the thing- while its the most efficient option I am also thinking of the workers themselves and their families:

I am not going to cut their wages in half, even though they could potentially survive it, because that would horribly cut their morale and worsen their living conditions. Even though the long term profit I'd rake in would be fairly significant and in the eyes of the most cut throat capitalist, worth it. And I don't need a god to instill goodwill and humanity into me, I was born with it and developed it stronger throughout my lifetime. Which might sound odd coming from a man such as myself...

To a certain extent.  But of course "more than you are intellectually able to handle" (and everybody has that point somewhere) is beyond that reasonable extent.  So what happens when the "meat" of the explanation lies in that area?

Really?  If a particular city was critical to the strategy, but you didn't understand why and attempts to explain it failed due to your not being a specialist in military theory, you wouldn't fight to take that city?

Yitzi- I learned military theory so I could understand strategic importance. You learn a basic degree of it even as a conscript, and I was a university educated military man- so I understood premise of situations I was involved in. And if I didn't understand them, no I wouldn't fight. I'm not going to fight for a cause I don't believe in- unless im forced. And then I really don't have much a choice then do I? If a nation invaded my country however, I'd already know, even if not educated in military matters- I am defending my country and those within it, including me, my family and everything I grew up with, love and cherish.

Even a grunt is educated to a point, and an educated military force, a smart military force- is much more valuable then just blind simpletons who can't read. Its why the Congolese movements against Mobutu failed due to the huge amount of superstition and lack of education- there was a lack of cohesion in their military, their troops did not understand the reasoning for their orders and they referred to age old practices that simply did NOT work when it came to modern warfare.

Which is a good thing, as I'm fairly certain that you were not fighting for a government with the capability to judge accurately that such an action is a net good.

And I doubt your god or this futuristic government is without flaw either- because as stated numerical calculations, even if you somehow factor in human error to a significant extent, things can still change and not EVERYTHING can be factored in. What if the head programmer/tenant of this program or interpreter or something is suicidal, or has other motives? And maybe the calculations were fine but the "interpretation" of the answer was seen in a certain... perspective.

Indeed; however, that does not change the fact that one can consider a situation in which those extremist groups are in the right.  It's just a pretty safe bet that the real world is not such a situation.

Even if the groups were in the right Yitzi and their answer was the most efficient one, I still wouldn't want to support them, and I would not go down without a fight. Just because Zeus favour the Greeks at Troy and Aphrodite caused the conflict to begin with does not mean the Trojans should've just laid down and died. Sometimes even when you are wrong, its better to go down admirably and fight for what you believe in, and only surrender when nothing good is going to come of it or you have a chance to save the lives of the people you were fighting for or with.

Let's say it's child sacrifice, i.e. the subject of sacrifice is the son or daughter of the person doing the sacrifice.

And what if there wasn't just one or two people doing it, but a whole civilization?  Would you be willing to destroy that civilization and its culture in order to put a stop to the practice?

Yes, I would destroy that civilization and break the back of its culture, I wouldn't kill everyone in it, but I would certainly assimilate them to a more hospitable cultural model. Because children, even though they are sentient living beings with their own thought processes are easily manipulated and cannot fully fend for themselves both physically and mentally. And it's abhorrid a society would do that. And on a more logic based point of view, morality aside, you are pointlessly and needlessly killing the next generation to appease a fictional god or gods. Killing someone for something that doesn't even exist- and if it boosts happiness of the populace- then that populace needs to be socially engineered because under my principles of morality, not only is it needless suffering, needless waste of resource, and a never ending spiral of unnecessary murder- its also morbid and disgusting in my eyes for the reason that you are killing something that came from your own flesh and blood. Different cultural mindset, sure- but I have my reasoning. Point is, I still wouldn't kill that populace outright.

And on another note with that- said civilization would be an inherit threat to ours because if cultural mingling ever occurred, the stability and thus survival of the state would be at risk because then you got a parent in a family who wishes to kill their child. And that's going to cause friction enough for civil war- so quite frankly assimilation is the step I'd take. Better then genocide, at least.  And who am I to make these calls? To go out and change this civilization? Well, the same logic can be applied to them, who are they to do that and make that decision?

It all depends on how relative they are to us- if they are across the world we would certainly cut off ties from them... but logistically invasion may also be out of the question. It depends on a lot of factors, but if they were at war with us then I'd see to it their culture was broken and eradicated, their people changed to a different, less violent model. A culture/religion that intends to harm people like that, and yes, its considered harm regardless if a CHILD is willing or not, less so for an adult. If this society instead sacrificed willing adults, then I would not care. That is their choice and they are old enough to make their own decision.