Thor 2
Philosopher
Well I was going to address it to our direction finding friend, but when I looked at his/her post, I found that he/she did not say the hard atheist hates theists, but hates the idea of gods.
God's purpose
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Well I was going to address it to our direction finding friend, but when I looked at his/her post, I found that he/she did not say the hard atheist hates theists, but hates the idea of gods.
Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
I hate ISIL. That's it. I can't hate something that doesn't exist, so I don't hate god.
Sure, but his (I think but I could be wrong so I will ask) previous posts make it very clear how (s)he feels about atheists.
Can't say I hate anything. But I do have a dislike of theism and some theists, Oh, and a dislike of some atheists as well. Some of my best friends are theists, numerologists, spiritualists, etc. I even have a very good friend that's a tea leaves reader. She's a lovely person.
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Correction - I HATE paedophiles!
Thor 2
Philosopher
Well I do to, at lease I hate the ones that give in to their lust and molest children.
If you happen to be afflicted with paedophile lust I guess it would be a difficult thing to live with.
Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
I'm a kitten! Not really. I'm a chick.
doronshadmi
Penultimate Amazing
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More like...lord salad, as long as being in not aware of itself without words.
Navigator
Philosopher
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We all 'speak of evil'...In the example I have given, it is someone purposefully harming someone else - knowing it is evil to do so but doing so anyway.
The human has a need to attack and kill someone because they need to survive physically?
The human needs to survive emotionally?
I would say that example has to be shown in order to make some kind of acessment on the action.
I understand the troubles in the middle east for example are seen by both sides to be 'evil' (the other side being the evil one of course) but that conflict is very complicated.
Well we have prisons for people deemed to be evil - as well as for those simply breaking laws which may or may not be necessary laws in the first place but are deemed to be 'evil' because the majority of folks accept it at face value. Unnecessary laws may be evil themselves for the harm they cause...
I am privy to that and understand that most of us know good from evil.
Maybe not - but your reaction to the situation decided that was the case at the time. Hindsight is a great thing but either way, there would be little point in losing sleep over it. What is done is done.
That as well yes. Primarily though, forgiveness is about letting go and getting on. The one being forgiven might not give a toss about whether you forgive them or not. But it isn't about the offender.
Forgiveness fixes it alright. The real problem with your example is that the victim has to want to forgive and if the perpetrator even gets away with it after the law has been involved (through not enough evidence etc) then the victim is less likely to want to go that way. But it appears we agree here that being unforgiving increase the chances that the victim will become a victimizer.
Well personally I don't even think Jesus said that people are going to burn in hell for an eternity but there it is 'written'.
The thing about unsavory thought processes is that the more often than not they lead to evil actions if the individual chooses not to keep them in check and exterminate them from said thought processing. That is a discipline in itself. Should I beat children because my parents beat me? It is up to me as an individual to make my own mind up on that. Thought is 'the voice in my head.' I listen to the good and if evil thoughts slip in I recognize them and expell them.
And there you were, mentioning Jesus just in the last paragraph.
While the bible is interesting, I don't consider it to be a manual for how to think correctly.
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PartSkeptic
Illuminator
After a lot more research I could not find any article that was critical of the circuit. What I did find is a lot of reference to this "now-famous" experiment.
If I was any sort of skeptic I would not use this experiment as an example of hardware evolution. It is has numerous areas that can be criticized.
What he should have shown us was the actual scope screens for the transition from 1 kHz to 10 kHz. This would have given a huge amount of information. If the output immediately changed state before the first short pulse had ended then the FPGA is sensitive to transition, not pulse interval. Most analog devices need a few cycles to determine a frequency change.
How did he get the "empirical" fitness constants of 1/30730.746 and 1/30527.973? Why are they cited to 8 significant figures? Surely 1/30700 and 1/30500 would have worked.
This experiment has all the hallmarks of a scientific flim-flam (illusion). Maybe he did it as a prank and it got out of hand.
Here is a better example of evolutionary hardware. {My bold underline}
Here is another which uses the FPGA in the digital mode as it should.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gjb/includes/publications/other/barlow2001-seh/barlow2001-seh.pdf
Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
I'm not quoting Navigator's post because it was super long, but he said something like "we all know what is evil, hurting someone is evil".
So if I beat up a mugger who is threatening my kid, I'm evil?
If the police have to hurt someone to take them into custody, the police are evil?
Surgery hurts, is my surgeon evil?
Giving birth hurts like hell, is the baby evil?
So if I beat up a mugger who is threatening my kid, I'm evil?
If the police have to hurt someone to take them into custody, the police are evil?
Surgery hurts, is my surgeon evil?
Giving birth hurts like hell, is the baby evil?
Those that practice and promote “Good must conquer evil” beliefs and ideologies invariably mean their particular interpretation of “good” and “evil”. If you don't agree with them you're automatically “evil”. It's then their common practice to wish harm on you or hurt you, or even kill you (but apparently that's not “evil”).
Navigator has been asked many times to define "good" and "evil" but for some (known) reason he hasn't.
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Navigator
Philosopher
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Yet another forum member who thinks it perfectly alright to mirepresent what I have said and then argue with the straw-man created through the misrepresentation. What ever happened to critical thinking?
You sure are not....here let me do that for you...
In the example I have given, it is someone purposefully harming someone else - knowing it is evil to do so but doing so anyway.
If the police have to hurt someone to take them into custody, the police are evil?
Surgery hurts, is my surgeon evil?
Giving birth hurts like hell, is the baby evil?
ftfy
Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
I don't believe in good or evil. So if you say "it is evil to hurt people" I need clarification. Is it evil for military members to kill the opposing forces? Don't the other guys think the exact same thing?
Good and evil don't exist. Your argument is predicated on an accepted definition of those terms, which I for one do not accept.
Thor 2
Philosopher
Navigator did give the following definition of sorts at the top of that super long post RogueKitten mentioned:
I have a question about it however. What if you do something nasty but do not believe it is evil to do it? Religious people do this all the time so is it evil non the less?
Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
Interesting point of view:
Recently I saw an interview with a former CIA agent and she was talking about how a Taliban member had explained their point of view to her. He said, you Americans have so many movies about the scrappy resistance fighters beat the oppression. Independence Day, stuff like that. He went on to say, but to us, you're the alien invaders, and we are Will Smith.
This also goes to explain why "good and evil" are useless and arbitrary. I may think the US military is "good". They're fighting for our freedom, keeping the US safe from terrorists. But the terrorists think we are evil and they are good.
Look at it this way: the "founding fathers" were terrorists. At least to the British army.
Recently I saw an interview with a former CIA agent and she was talking about how a Taliban member had explained their point of view to her. He said, you Americans have so many movies about the scrappy resistance fighters beat the oppression. Independence Day, stuff like that. He went on to say, but to us, you're the alien invaders, and we are Will Smith.
This also goes to explain why "good and evil" are useless and arbitrary. I may think the US military is "good". They're fighting for our freedom, keeping the US safe from terrorists. But the terrorists think we are evil and they are good.
Look at it this way: the "founding fathers" were terrorists. At least to the British army.
That's not a definition of any sort. It merely assumes someone “knows” some preferred definition of “evil".
Perhaps she's saying that evil is purely intent and it doesn't matter if the act is actually evil or not. But then what defines evil intent?
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Magrat
Mrs. Rincewind
Definition of:
Evil - morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked
Good - morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious
As I have shown here, the definitions of good and evil involve a moral structure. Morality isn't "innate", and not predefined. The only basic moral compass all humans seem to have is empathetic: "the golden rule".
My good and evil aren't necessarily your good and evil. I can't tell you what yours are, and vice versa. Religion tries to do that, and goes well beyond "do unto others" and into "be exactly like me or else!"
Evil - morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked
Good - morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious
As I have shown here, the definitions of good and evil involve a moral structure. Morality isn't "innate", and not predefined. The only basic moral compass all humans seem to have is empathetic: "the golden rule".
My good and evil aren't necessarily your good and evil. I can't tell you what yours are, and vice versa. Religion tries to do that, and goes well beyond "do unto others" and into "be exactly like me or else!"
Navigator's “Good must defeat evil” ideology is meaningless unless and until she defines what preferred morality defines her preferred “good” and “evil”.
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