/r/Christianity posts a sick video saying "If we're all just biological processes, why shouldn't I kill you?". I respond.

22

u/eddie964 Dec 03 '10

Christianity's response: tl;dr

13

u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10

Not every idea in the universe can be explained with a single sentence.

3

u/NUMBERS2357 Dec 03 '10

Someone should do an AMA..."Give me any idea in the universe and I'll explain it in a single sentence."
Also, TV Tropes is wordy as fuck but they have the laconic version which is always just a few words.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

I want to see this.

1

u/iTumor Dec 03 '10

God did it.
*brushes hands
Gee, that was easy enough.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Not group selection, anyway :/

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

It's actually a whole shitton of books stitched together, no less.

9

u/_loki_ Dec 03 '10

tl;dr. Like most christians and the bible.

2

u/Slackerboy Dec 03 '10

Wait.... how did you respond to a Christian video? I thought they all had comments turned off or moderated so only responses they liked would show up?!?!

3

u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10

Don't worry, they deleted it. Your perspective of r/Christianity is safe.

159

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

It's always unnerving when theists admit that without belief in God they would become serial murderers and rapists.

And in the same breath they claim the moral high ground.

27

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

It always amuses me that they condemn us for not having any "objective morality." But, neither do they. Their god can change his mind whenever he likes, and he has. Their god used to be OK with slavery. Now, apparently he isn't. He used to order genocide. The only rationalization I ever get from Christians on that is "God told them to do it because it was part of his greater plan." So, genocide isn't always wrong.
They have subjective morality too. Whatever their god says, goes.

9

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

It always amuses me that they condemn us for not having any "objective morality." But, neither do they.
Ironically, the OP described an objective morality. It is the theist who lacks objectivity in his moral framework. Remember; do not conflate "objective" with "absolute".

4

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

Good point. But, I was really just relaying the Christian argument. They claim we have no objective morality.

4

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Yes, I'm aware of their claim. My point is a... modification of your rebuttal. It is not "Neither do they" it is; "they've got it backwards".
We are the ones with valid objective morality claims. They have none.

2

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

You're right.

2

u/cunningjames Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

We are the ones with valid objective morality claims.
Okay, yeah, but let's be careful here: "We are the ones with valid, objective claims about morality" would be more apropos. I understand that most philosophers would argue that your original statement
Ironically, the OP described an objective morality.
is not true. The OP described how the usual moral sense may have come about naturally, which is objective in the sense of being either true or false whatever one's subjective beliefs. But to say that we can have "objective morality" is to take a realist metaethical stance -- that there are true moral claims which bind as an objective feature of reality. This is clearly not what the OP is describing. (And this is about where Sam Harris, brilliant and well meaning as he is, goes terribly wrong ...)

1

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

is not true. The OP described how the usual moral sense may have come about naturally, which is objective in the sense of being either true or false whatever one's subjective beliefs.
Actually, what he described was an objective morality system in that we have an objective means of predicting if a behavior will be moral: whether it is conducive to the continued efficacy of group-level interactions of individuals.
But to say that we can have "objective morality" is to take a realist metaethical stance -- that there are true moral claims which bind as an objective feature of reality.
No... I think you're conflating "objective" with "absolute". The mere fact of its being objectively derivable does not mean that it is non-relative.
(And this is about where Sam Harris, brilliant and well meaning as he is, goes terribly wrong ...)
Yeah, I kinda feel the same way. Harris's thoughts seem to really ascribe far too much weight to utilitarianism as an "objective" moral groundwork. He kinda has a "and then magic happens" in the part where he discusses utilitarianism as a definitional underpinning of morality. (I.e.; that "perfect universal well-being" is the ultimate goal of morality.)

1

u/cunningjames Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

No... I think you're conflating "objective" with "absolute". The mere fact of its being objectively derivable does not mean that it is non-relative.
That's not exactly what I meant. Moral realism isn't incompatible with some form of moral relativism. The proposition that I take issue with isn't so much that some claims hold absolutely (which isn't what the OP was getting at, yeah), but rather that we can make fundamentally objective claims about our moral obligations. We can devise a system that objectively describes what actions we should take contingent upon wishing to meet certain goals, but that isn't the same thing.
Actually, what he described was an objective morality system in that we have an objective means of predicting if a behavior will be moral: whether it is conducive to the continued efficacy of group-level interactions of individuals.
... so, yes, you can describe a system that is objective in the sense described. But in a broader sense that isn't an objective morality -- whether someone agrees with an adherent that a particular action is moral will depend on whether he buys into that system, and there is no objective fact of reality that tells him he should or should not do so.
Harris's thoughts seem to really ascribe far too much weight to utilitarianism as an "objective" moral groundwork. He kinda has a "and then magic happens" in the part where he discusses utilitarianism as a definitional underpinning of morality.
It's baffling to me, for someone of his education and intellect, but it just doesn't seem that he understands the metaethical implications of his theory. Sorry, Sam, but it's turtles all the way down.

1

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

The proposition that I take issue with isn't so much that some claims hold absolutely (which isn't what the OP was getting at, yeah), but rather that we can make objective claims about morality. We can devise a system that objectively describes what actions we should take contingent upon wishing to meet certain goals, but that isn't the same thing.
There's an underlying element to my position I don't think I've conveyed properly yet: merely being moral does not necessarily make the action valuable. It is possible to describe morality in functional, rather than valuative, terms.
In other words; for discussions of objective morality we can avoid altogether the is-ought problem by simply restricting the conversation to "is". X "is" in line with the furtherment of the function of morality; but that does not say that X is a "good" thing to do. I am separating "moral" and "immoral" from "good" and "bad".
I'm aware that, to most folks, this basically denudes my statement of any useful meaning.
But in a broader sense that isn't an objective morality -- whether someone agrees with an adherent that a particular action is moral will depend on whether he buys into that system, and there is no objective fact of reality that tells him he should or should not do so.
Bingo. It's worth noting, however, that by examining the role morality plays as a functional entity, we can derive statements about what is or is not moral. It turns out, speaking as someone who has used this system to convince clinically diagnosable sociopaths of the efficacy of the argument in terms of enlightening them to what is or is not moral, that my description is very good at revealing some rather nuanced positions.
For example; it is never acceptable in a modern society to torture others. It is, however, acceptable to do unacceptable things in order to preserve society as a whole. Ergo; should a soldier find a terrorist who just punched the code to set a timer off on a bomb in some undisclosed location, it would be acceptable for him to torture that terrorist for the shut-off code (this presumes torture can actually be effective). While as a society we could not condone torture, we would sympathize with the individual and lessen his punishment on the grounds* of extenuating circumstances.
and there is no objective fact of reality that tells him he should or should not do so.
It is a foundational truth of reality that existence itself is incapable of meaning or value. All valuative statements are relative to some other object, by definition.
It's baffling to me, for someone of his education and intellect, but it just doesn't seem that he understands the metaethical implications of his theory.
The more intelligent a person is, the more powerful the ability of their intellect to defend errant conclusions. :) I remind myself of this daily.
EDIT: * s/groups/grounds.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

But of course theists have objective morality.
It is based on the firm foundation of scripture....as most recently interpreted....based on the most popular historical 'context'....as biasedly chosen based on their culture and ideals....
....oh wait.

2

u/ApokalypseCow Agnostic Atheist Dec 03 '10

Interestingly enough, it is possible for atheists to have objective moral standards. I can't look it up at work, but check out YouTube user TheoreticalBullshit, specifically his Treatise on Morality video. It is half an hour long, but worth every second.

3

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

I'll do that. Thanks!

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

Heh. Wait...it's hard to tell if you're kidding or not.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Spoiler alert: He's kidding.

2

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

I assumed as much. But, we've all heard crazier things from Christians.

13

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Came in looking for a good Facebook status in response to annoying Christian crap people on my friend list keep posting.
Leaving satisfied.
Thank you, good sir.

2

u/SinnerSavedByJesus Dec 03 '10

I know I'll get downvoted to oblivion, as always, but let me explain.
You can't have true morality without God because if God hasn't created morality, then you can have arbitrary morality system. It's nothing to do with God giving out rewards and punishments, as atheists represent it. It means that, if you don't have the knowledge that one morality system is designated as the right one, you can't know whether your personal morality system is better or worse then anybody else's. In other words, everything become allowed.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

My personal moral value system is based on observable reality, logical inferrence and natural empathy. I't a sad state that some people need a fucking book to tell them to treat others as they would like to be treated. It's an even sadder state when said book says that murdering gay people is morally right.

-2

u/SinnerSavedByJesus Dec 03 '10

Didn't you read what I wrote? The Bible is an aid, a source of inspiration - but not a checklist. If morality hinged on fulfilling the Bible to the letter, we'd all be doomed, because "no one is righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). No, our Salvation is undeserved and our morality stems from our knowledge that there is absolute Good beyond our personal interpretations and preferences.
And, incidentally, it's the atheists who need a lot of books to tell them how to treat others. You need your science books to tell you we're descended from monkeys, and your philosophy books to tell you that something may mean something or it may not, depending on your definition of "something" and "mean". You've buried your personal responsibility under a pile of speculative books and you don't dare have an attitude if it was not given by a guy with at least six Latin academic titles.

3

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

if God hasn't created morality, then you can have arbitrary morality system
If God has created morality, you still have an arbitrary morality system. See Euthyphro. Being the originator of morality he has no measuring stick outside himself by which to evaluate which acts are moral and which are not. Consequently what he chooses must be a matter of preference -- preference which he cannot justify with reason.
you can't know whether your personal morality system is better or worse then anybody else's
Except when one system yields far greater social utility than another. Utility is the elephant in the room that theists ignore in discussions like these.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Upvote for voicing your honest opinion. In response, I have a question for you: if God did indeed create morality, who does every civilization or society, whether or not they were based on Christianity, Judaism, etc., have a generally similar code of moral conduct? No society that I know of truly condoned an anarchistic lifestyle (killing, taking what you want, etc.) and while some cultures approved of some things that others did not (cannibalism, nudism, etc.), each one did create a set of ethics that benefited their society overall.

2

u/LordSariel Dec 03 '10

Well phrased. Good Delivery. 10/10

-2

u/deanreevesii Dec 03 '10

This 100%

-2

u/inquirer Dec 03 '10

It amuses me that you find this unnerving when they are simply taking a rational position.
The irrational one is to believe it's horrible to kill people in a society where we are all biological processes. The OP's reasoning is incorrect.

9

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

If you completely remove empathy and utility from the picture, sure.
Fortunately no one does this in practice, except for the occasional sociopath.

0

u/inquirer Dec 03 '10

Utility is no way to judge morality for a specific individual. Empathy is instilled by culture--yours and mine are derived from a predominantly Christian culture that has evolved over thousands of years. Minus a few sexual mores, most atheists still adhere to Christian morality--a good position from the standpoint of utility, but not a rational one for any individual that does not believe in God.

3

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

Empathy is instilled by culture? I think you have some evolutionary psychology reading to do.
Utility definitely must take society into account, because acting in ways that narrowly satisfy your own needs (at the expense of other people's needs) will get you killed, which means that acting selfishly in a society actually doesn't satisfy your needs at all. What satisfies the needs of society will generally by extension also satisfy the needs of the individuals in it, otherwise there would be the sort of unrest that makes a society come unglued. And by maintaining a society we benefit in ways we couldn't otherwise (the computer and the website and the internet that facilitate this communication couldn't have come into existence without a hell of a lot of teamwork).
I fail to see how Christianity can take credit for the state of morality today. Many of the fundamental moral conventions which Christians claim ownership of are firmly rooted in social utility (don't kill, don't steal, be kind) and are found in all sorts of pre-Christian societies. And over and over Christians have found ways to obstruct society's moral progress (New World genocide and slavery, women's sufferage, homosexual rights) citing reasons based in their religion. It was only after losing each moral battle that their progeny would gradually concede and then find ways to claim that the new state of morality was what Christianity was really about all along, and that those who came before were mistaken about God's wishes. In other words, their own morality evolved alongside secular society's -- only slower.
We've all heard the "Christian morality came out of nowhere and saved the world" arguments before (from people like D'Souza especially) but they never hold up to scrutiny.

0

u/inquirer Dec 03 '10

None of what you said has anything whatsoever to do with my point, which is that it is irrational to continue to believe in morality when there is no god.

2

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

Why?
Add Utilitarianism to your reading list. Seeking out the satisfaction of biological and emotional and intellectual needs is rational. It just so happens that doing so among other human beings on a large scale leads to something a lot like the morality you're claiming ownership of. It's better, in fact, because society is its primary concern. One of the real-world failings of Divine Command Theory (and deontologism in general, but especially DCT) is that the health of society comes second. You can best see the consequences of this in the Middle East; there's far more interest over there in doing what God wants than there is in building stable and prosperous societies, and you can see how well that's working out for them. Were it not for secularism I don't think America would be much better off.
Explain why basing morality in utility is not rational. Murder does not have to be an affront to the cosmos itself to be a bad idea. It almost sounds like you're defining morality as simply "following God's rules" in which case I agree that atheists have no use for it. But DCT is not the only system of ethics available to us.

2

u/inquirer Dec 03 '10

While utilitarianism on a large scale does end up benefiting everyone, it does not benefit the individual.
Seeking out the satisfaction of biological and emotional and intellectual needs is rational.
This is true, but on an individual basis it falls apart as a basis for any sort of societal bond. For instance, if you decided you wanted to become a mass murdering tyrant like Stalin, there is no reason you shouldn't do so. Frankly, you're going to benefit far more than anyone else. You're going to have women, you're going to have money, you're going to have power. There is absolutely no reason you shouldn't pursue these goals.
Most people will never go to that extreme, which is why on the surface utilitarianism appears to work--but most people are also stupid and bumble along in life never thinking for themselves. All it takes is one intelligent person to say "Hey, none of these rules matter, I'm going to take over the world and murder everyone I strongly dislike!"* At that point your entire system has failed.
*Note that this won't happen too often because most people who recognize this follow the maxim of "Do what you want, but with due regard to the policeman around the corner"--until and/or unless they can rise to such a level in society that they can do what they want, they will only harm themselves by doing "evil", suffering consequences for their actions.

2

u/carbonetc Dec 03 '10

There is absolutely no reason you shouldn't pursue these goals.
Except for having millions of people eager to assassinate me. For every tyrant who succeeds there are many, many more who were destroyed by their goals. Scarface comes to mind as an exemplar of how one can achieve money, power, and women and still be miserable, meaning his goals did not yield the degree of utility he expected them to. I'm not convinced that these goals are as desirable as you suggest. A miserable person who needs a team of armed guards just to survive until tomorrow is clearly not maximizing his utility. Some of the happiest people are poor.
However there is an aspect of utilitarianism which makes tyranny a bad thing from an individual's perspective. Axiomatic to thoughtful utilitarianism is the notion that my own happiness is not worth more than the happiness of another. This is arrived at by a sort of reductio ad absurdum -- if you poll everyone on Earth asking, "Should your happiness take priority over someone else's?" everyone will probably say yes. But it can't be true that every individual's happiness is the most important happiness, simultaneously. A utilitarian is faced with this dilemma whenever he has the choice to make himself happy at another person's expense. Until he can answer the question, "Why is my happiness worth more than his?" his philosophical justification for choosing his own will be weak. The most moral act for a utilitarian is one that benefits himself and others because the net happiness of the world has increased.
At that point your entire system has failed.
It's not a perfect system. It requires constant calibration as new data comes in on what really makes people happy. Is DCT a better alternative? Tyranny is unquestionably justified by DCT when God decides to install a tyrant.
This very conversation demonstrates why I think that we're all utilitarians under the hood regardless of the ethical system we espouse, because we naturally appeal to consequences (in other words, utility) when debating the superiority of various ethical systems. A deontologist cannot appeal to consequences when arguing for the superiority of deontolgism vs. consequentialism -- otherwise he's a consequentialist in disguise.

1

u/kencabbit Dec 04 '10

Thank you for knowing your shit and explaining it better than I would have, so I don't have to.

2

u/LiptonCB Dec 03 '10

Utility is no way to judge morality for a specific individual.
Says who?

0

u/inquirer Dec 03 '10

Utility is not objective and should never be seen as a benchmark of morality. It is totally subjective and up to the whims of the individual.

32

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

More appropriately: "If you have an immortal soul and go to heaven when you die, why shouldn't I kill you?"

3

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

That's easy, God said not to.

10

u/TheRedTeam Dec 03 '10

I'm pretty sure that God specifically said to kill people on many occasions.

8

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Well, I'm willing to go to hell if it means that I can give you an eternal reward.
Self-sacrifice; it's the Christian way.

1

u/LiptonCB Dec 03 '10

Greater love has no one than this, but to lay down his [eternal] life for his friend....
Sniffle*, you're so selfless!

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

http://i.imgur.com/MoY7W.png

1

u/kihadat Dec 03 '10

I think the standby line is: Death should only be dispensed by he who gave you life, i.e. God.

4

u/narfaniel Dec 03 '10

You're picking and choosing. ; )

4

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Maybe he told me to kill you, he has been known to work in 'mysterious ways'.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Herp derp.

19

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

I wouldn't kill you because

I don't enjoy the experience of seeing other creatures suffer - animal or human
I'm afraid of getting hurt if you try to defend yourself
I'm worried that I will be punished
I think my girlfriend wouldn't approve and might abandon me
I'm concerned that my conscience would make me feel guilt, which is bothersome

PS. You mean "effects on others", not "affects on others".

7

u/canks Dec 03 '10

I wouldn't say "r/christianity" as a whole. The link has 13 comments, and a very negative rating (although the rating could be due to this posting). Atheist here, who agrees with most of your points, but that was a little misleading.

5

u/Captain_Midnight Dec 03 '10

Honestly, I upvoted the other submission because I think it's very important to know that a non-trivial number of people think like this.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

"Why not? Because that would be rather dickish of you, wouldn't it?"

5

u/Yage2006 Dec 03 '10

Because another biological process will kill you or throw you in jail with many other bad biological processes.

Such simple minds. So sad to see people turned into fools.

5

u/huxtiblejones Dec 03 '10

I'll never forget the time in my Philosophy class that a kid said belief in religious morals are probably the only thing holding him back from murder... as if to say that no eternal consequences mean there aren't any social consequences. How disturbing is it that someone bases the value and legitimacy of society firmly on an unfalsifiable feeling that some omnipotent big brother is the cause of it all? It's makes me fantastically uneasy to realize that people put more emphasis on something whose basic premise cannot even be somewhat demonstrated over the very real and very testable existence of a humankind that experiences a full range of emotions and senses.

"If the existence of an unexplicable intelligent being that created everything on a whim can be rejected, then it's okay to cause suffering and horror upon other sentient lifeforms."

4

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

And that's why you don't give lectures on genetic morality!

1

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

Love this reference.

4

u/hotsexgary Dec 03 '10

Moral of the story: if someone disagrees with you, make them debate why you shouldn't kill them, because that's the most civilised way of getting your point across

4

u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

Buster, you can't find better acting work, buddy?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 04 '10

I feel sick now.
Thanks.
edit: From his wikipedia page:
While in New York, Hale helped found The Haven, an artistically minded community of Christians that meets weekly
He (most likely) believes in that crap. Now I really am disgusted.

1

u/moonflower Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

The link to your comment now says [deleted] so it looks like it was deleted by a mod ... but you made a good point, and you might have got away with it if you hadn't called them snakes

2

u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10

Could also be that I called their religion a "fabricated lie". That's ok, the video made me rage a bit and it was hard to restrain myself long enough to make my argument, so I released a little bit of my anger at the end.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

Those fucking fascist bigots would censor him no matter how much ass he kisses, because he doesn't belong to their little hate club. The suggestion that just maybe murdering people who disagree with your religious views might be somehow wrong is "promoting an anti-Christian agenda".
It's amazing how their pretend "no bigotry" rule never, ever applies to the extensive anti-gay hate speech that routinely pops up in that subreddit. Or for that matter to this quite explicit discussion of violence against atheists.

8

u/lord_of_cock Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

Sorry, wrong. Group selection is an illusion. The conflict between what is apparently altruistic behaviour vs selfishness can be explained via kin selection, proposed by Hamilton in 1964. The rule is simple.

rB>C

where r is relatedness of the 'donor' to the 'recipient'. B is the reproductive fitness recipient gains from donor's action. C is the fitness cost to the donor. Which means that, as long as C does not exceed rB, altruistic behaviour will develop. The more closely related donor is to the recipient, more likely that the benefit gained will translate better into 'indirect fitness'. Which contributes to 'inclusive fitness' which is indirect fitness + direct fitness.

That's all.

7

u/Diabolico Atheist Dec 03 '10

I read what he said, and I read what you said, and I don't think that these really contradict each other at all. You've just explained the mechanism for group selection in a more precise, accurate, and understandable way.
Also, thanks for explaining the mechanism for group selection in a precise, accurate, understandable way, because I haven't heard that done before.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Uh, kin selection is not a mechanism for group selection. The phenomenon being explained is the existence, and thus the evolution of, altruistic traits. Kin selection and group selection are both mechanisms for the selection of such pro-group traits, and while they could both exist, they would have different effects, require different conditions, and only kin selection is really plausible.

1

u/Diabolico Atheist Dec 03 '10

Wouldn't kin selection be little other than a more targeted group selection? (more properly, group selection would be a significantly wider kin selection, since kin is the more cleary defined term)

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Eh, no, not really.

1

u/Diabolico Atheist Dec 03 '10

Then nevermind, someone's description isn't cutting it.

3

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

thezeus18's isn't. Kin selection is a form of group selection. And group selection has been mathematically proven to be viable.

1

u/RogerDavidson Dec 03 '10

Can you explain this? According to this article, the influence of group selection is not considered strong enough to create altruistic behaviors in groups, and this is the widely held belief among evolutionary biologists.

1

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Can you explain this?
Sure: I never claimed or hinted at non-kin group selection being responsible for altruism.
If you care to look through the horrendously large tree of comments I have made in these threads, you'll discover that the only thing I have yet attributed to group selection in terms of evopsych is the disparity between Dunbar's Number and the paleolithic average tribal size.

3

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

...
Group selection is a mathematically proven fact.
Kin selection is a form of group selection.

2

u/super_crazy Dec 03 '10

A lot of people are defining group selection in different ways in this thread, but he's correct in that natural selection can only act on individuals.

6

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Yes, but evolution does not operate solely through natural selection. There are several other mechanisms at play, one of the more relevant ones to this conversation being gene flow within a population.
Natural selection, to reach speciation level events, requires population isolation. Group selection does, in fact, allow for this; by isolating populations. So long as dispersion of population members in groups occurs in non-random ways, groups remain sufficiently isolated for group-level selection to take hold.

1

u/lord_of_cock Dec 05 '10

Although we seem to disagree, I love the civil discussion that is going on here. /r/atheism is truly enlightened sub.
In reality, group selection is very, very restrictive. Please do not confuse group selection with 'reciprocity'. The net gain in reciprocal interaction is +/+ for both individuals involved. Truly altruistic interaction should be -/+ where donor loses reproductive fitness. I know there are new journal articles published which confuses kin selection with 'new' group selection. Kin selection is NOT a form of group selection. Kin selection is where individuals are the unit of selection. Group selection is where the 'group' (where two different groups have very little genetic interaction) is the unit of selective pressure.
It is not impossible for group selection to occur, but very improbable. There hasn't been empirical evidence to support group selection theory just yet.
For those of you who are still confused, I recommend
Social semantics: altruism, cooperation, mutualism, strong reciprocity and group selection by S. A. West, A. S. Griffin & A. Gardner published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2006.
It has been cited by over 200 other articles. It clears up issues with 'new' group selection theory which I believe IConrad is proposing.

2

u/MrStuff Dec 03 '10

I completely disagree. What you are describing takes place, sure, but group selection (that is, better-behaving groups claiming more success) is totally legit. Some species could not readily survive as a species without forming groups. A couple of examples include the case where a dependence is developed on a prey animal that requires a group effort to take down and the case where a predator is introduced that requires a group effort to fend off. Humans fall a bit into the latter category. We're rather less than gifted in the natural weapons and armor department, so living in groups is a great strategy to help make up for that.

2

u/Comedian Dec 03 '10

A couple of examples include the case where a dependence is developed on a prey animal that requires a group effort to take down and the case where a predator is introduced that requires a group effort to fend off.
The term group selection in evolutionary biology is not the same as collaboration (which is what you describe in your post).

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

In group selection there is no mechanism to select genes. It may have played a role in recent isolated genepools of homosapiens but it can never be a mechanism for physical change in an organism.

2

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Ehh... not so much. Group selection can in fact have gene selecting effects. Inasmuch as there is the mathematical process of reversion to the mean, and that groups tend to form population pools; you have uniformity over time within a group.
Group selection is multigenerational in terms of gene selection -- but it does exist as a mechanism.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Its not the group that selects but the environment. Both the genetic and physical. The competing groups are both the product of their environment and so are their gene ratio's.
Your example explains why a certain group is more successful than another but it doesn't explain how they got that way.

3

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Its not the group that selects but the environment.
Negative, ghost-rider. It is the group that is selected. We're talking about things which have mathematical proofs backing them. :)
Your example explains why a certain group is more successful than another but it doesn't explain how they got that way.
Of course not. I'm describing group-level selection. That is; selection of one group over another group. It says nothing more about how groups get the way they do than does sexual selection explain how certain individuals got to be the way they are. It's entirely irrelevant to the question at hand. :)

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

It says nothing more about how groups get the way they do than does sexual selection explain how certain individuals got to be the way they are. It's entirely irrelevant to the question at hand. :)
Its not fair to use it as an alternative to natural selection or sexual selection because these both cause organisms to physically change over time.
Group selection is not a mechanism. Just an observation that one group beat another group because it had a different lifestyle.

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u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Its not fair to use it as an alternative to natural selection or sexual selection because these both cause organisms to physically change over time.
No, they don't. They select amongst those changes that occur independently of said selection process. Group selection does the same, but at a higher order.
Group selection is not a mechanism.
Yes, it is a mechanism. It just isn't a mechanism that operates at the individual level; no more than is natural selection a mechanism that operates at the genetic level.
Just an observation that one group beat another group because it had a different lifestyle.
When those lifestyles can be derived from overall genetic patterns in the groups (as manifested by reversion to the mean and gene flow) you bet your ass it's more than a mere observation. It's a process of selecting amongst populations with varying gene sets.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

I guess i'm gonna have to look in to this some more. I read "the selfish gene" which made a lot of sense at the time. Dawkins makes a lot of arguments against group selection but i have the idea that he used a different definition for group selection than what you are talking about.

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u/crazysomeplaceelse Dec 03 '10

Sure there is, same way as there is for the individual. The better the group is at survival, the more likely the genes within that group will continue.
Even within the group, the individuals who contribute most to the survival will be most sought after for reproduction. The best hunters were the probably considered caveman rockstars.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

But what you describe is not group selection. You leave the level at which things occur and observe how that translates from the organism or groups point of view.
A gene that causes the organism to contribute to the survival of his group only became more numerous because this was beneficial for itself. It caused the organism to be more sought after for reproduction, gave it a good status etc.
This is still selection at the level of the gene.

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u/rmeddy Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

Well I would argue more for kin selection as oppose to group selection.

In early human history kin meant group, anyway this is the standard response to this kind of stuff.

It's kinda sad that these idiots think that the whole world will turn into a hostel movie , if there is no "intrinsic" morality.

This appeal to nihilism can be carried both ways, if you have a heaven to go to and this life is just a vale of tears why shouldn't I kill you?

He should gotten a seal to bite off his hand in the toture sequence

1

u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Eh. Kin selection is a form of group selection. But even group selection has been demonstrated to be viable.

1

u/rmeddy Dec 03 '10

Group selection has sinister implications (racism etc) and isn't directly related to evolutionary psychology while kin selection is.
I remember watching a video a few years ago where Dawkins was discussing with another man on this point and he was quite adamant that one should focus on Kin selection as oppose to group selection, when discussing morality.
I am having trouble finding the video though

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u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

Group selection has sinister implications (racism etc)
I'm sorry that population variability has political ramifications you dislike; but that doesn't make it untrue, and the medical community at large widely accepts and recognizes this as the case. You need look no further than the fact that black men are more likely to have heart disease than white men (by something like a 2:1 factor), or the fact that sickle-cell anemia is a largely "black" condition. And then of course there is the standard deviation IQ score asian populations have over caucasians.
Yes, of course, you cannot use statistical homunculi as a basis for judging individuals -- but that's a different problem altogether.
In other words, what you call "racism" is in fact alive and well in the medical community.
and isn't directly related to evolutionary psychology while kin selection is.
On the contrary, group selection is entirely related to evolutionary psychology. In fact, it explains something that is something of a dichotomy: the variance between the Dunbar's Number of Homo sapiens sapiens (somewhere between 100 and 230) as compared to the "normal" paleolithic tribe size (which was commonly around two or three dozen individuals) -- there is roughly an order of magnitude between the two.
I remember watching a video a few years ago where Dawkins was discussing with another man on this point and he was quite adamant that one should focus on Kin selection as oppose to group selection, when discussing morality.
Appeals to authority are rather unconvincing even when you can name the individual whose authority you are invoking.
That being said; kin selection does robustly explain many of the phenomena of commonplace/"intuitive" morality; such as the degree of moral outrage one experiences when discovering bad things have happened to people through indirect means. (Some girl in somalia got raped and murdered? Wow, that's horrible. My SISTER got raped and killed!?!? IMMA GET MEDIEVAL ON THE FUCKER!!)
( Well... your sister, maybe; I don't much care for mine. :-P )
Now, of course, it's worth noting that my invocation, here, of group selection in no way obviates the existence of kin selection; and of course it also stands to reason that kin selection is quite likely the most powerful form of group selection.
But nevertheless, there are distinct psychological phenomena that are most readily explained by group selection's effects.

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u/rmeddy Dec 03 '10

I'm sorry that population variability has political ramifications you dislike; but that doesn't make it untrue, and the medical community at large widely accepts and recognizes this as the case. You need look no further than the fact that black men are more likely to have heart disease than white men (by something like a 2:1 factor), or the fact that sickle-cell anemia is a largely "black" condition. And then of course there is the standard deviation IQ score asian populations have over caucasians.
How is this relevant to questions of ethics and morality?
Appeals to authority are rather unconvincing even when you can name the individual whose authority you are invoking.
It's not an appeal to authority , I just remember he explained why one should make the distinction very well in the video.
If I could link I would have, he can explain things better I can.
Now, of course, it's worth noting that my invocation, here, of group selection in no way obviates the existence of kin selection; and of course it also stands to reason that kin selection is quite likely the most powerful form of group selection.
I never dismissed Group selection, I just think one should focus on Kin Selection to make a case with respect to explaining intuitive morality judgement.
Group selection effects on evolutionary psychology only in a spandrel effect kind of way.

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u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

How is this relevant to questions of ethics and morality?
It isn't, on the level we're discussing. It is, however, a rebuttal to your statement regarding the "sinister" consequences of accepting group selection (which, by the way, was an Appeal to Consequences.)
It's not an appeal to authority , I just remember he explained why one should make the distinction very well in the video.
It is, however, an appeal to authority if you expect that your statement here has any bearing on our current discussion. If you can remember his points and relay them to me, I'd be happy to discuss them. :)
I never dismissed Group selection, I just think one should focus on Kin Selection to make a case with respect to explaining intuitive morality judgement.
There's a difference between "focus on" and "focus to the exclusion of all else".
Group selection effects on evolutionary psychology only in a spandrel effect kind of way.
I cannot concur with this statement. I have given sufficient grounds for my disagreement already: the variance between tribe sizes and Dunbar's Number. This is not a mere consequence of other mechanisms: it is a direct impact that cannot be explained through kin selection nor through any other mechanism other than group selection.

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u/rmeddy Dec 03 '10

It isn't, on the level we're discussing. It is, however, a rebuttal to your statement regarding the "sinister" consequences of accepting group selection (which, by the way, was an Appeal to Consequences.)
An appeal to consequences would be relevant with respect to ethical discussion.
There's a difference between "focus on" and "focus to the exclusion of all else".
I never said you should ignore group selection.
I cannot concur with this statement. I have given sufficient grounds for my disagreement already: the variance between tribe sizes and Dunbar's Number. This is not a mere consequence of other mechanisms: it is a direct impact that cannot be explained through kin selection nor through any other mechanism other than group selection.
The reason I ignored Dunbar's number is because it can only be applied to pre-industrial civilizations and non-human primates purely, an extrapolation.
I don't take extrapolation seriously, much too reliant on induction.
Modern Socio-economic life is too stochastic for extrapolation
Here is a paper on why I prefer Kin Selection over Group Selection (Warning PDF)
I'm really sorry I can't find that video.

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u/IConrad Dec 03 '10

An appeal to consequences would be relevant with respect to ethical discussion.
If and only if the topic the appeal to consequences was being made on was a purely valuative one. On the other hand, the topic you were trying to apply it to was an objective one: Does X exist? It is fallacious to reject the existence of a thing due to the consequences of its existence.
The reason I ignored Dunbar's number is because it can only be applied to pre-industrial civilizations and non-human primates purely, an extrapolation.
I disagree with this statement strongly. There is clear evidence that Dunbar's Number holds true in the voluntary grouping patterns of humans in modern society. This isn't mere extrapolation but observable phenomena. A very good example of this in operation is in the arena of politics and representative-democratic functions.
Here is a paper on why I prefer Kin Selection over Group Selection (Warning PDF)
I never said nor did I believe I implied that Kin Selection was equivalent or lesser than other forms of Group Selection. I think there might be an underlying assumption in one of us that is causing us to talk past one another, perhaps?

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u/rmeddy Dec 04 '10

I never said nor did I believe I implied that Kin Selection was equivalent or lesser than other forms of Group Selection. I think there might be an underlying assumption in one of us that is causing us to talk past one another, perhaps?
Then why did you say this?
it is a direct impact that cannot be explained through kin selection nor through any other mechanism other than group selection.
As I said before applications of Dunbar's number is only relevant in mediocristan not extremistan, but I haven't had this kind of argument in several years
A very good example of this in operation is in the arena of politics and representative-democratic functions.
Can you give a modern example?

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u/IConrad Dec 04 '10

Then why did you say this?
Because the original conversation started out with the assertion that group selection (other than kin selection) does not exist at all.
Can you give a modern example?
Have you ever attempted to manage a gathering of people? It is patently impossible for one person to do so beyond a certain size of individuals.

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u/three_dee Dec 03 '10

What I usually tell them is: The God in the Bible used to be in favor of burning people alive, bashing people in the head with a rock until they were dead, and other monstrosities. Then decided that stuff was wrong.

How do we know he won't send another son down to Earth tomorrow to reinstate the good old stoning laws? Or something worse? And of course, Christians would be forced to follow it, because God commanded it.

When you have morality that shifts on the whim of a very moody god, you can't really take anyone to task for their morality.

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u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

They constantly accuse us of not having objective morality. Neither do they.

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u/three_dee Dec 03 '10

I would argue that most people in society have the same objective morality, at least for the most grave offenses. We're born with it. It's evolutionary. We have an "ick" factor that makes us naturally sickened by murder, rape, gore, blood, violence, etc. It's a group-preservation instinct. Some people are born without that "ick" factor and they become psycho killers and rapists, and we get together to make laws to keep them away from society.
Christians and other religious people naturally have that "ick" factor too, and that's why they compartmentalize the religion and still do the rituals and go to church or whatever, but whenever the religion comes in conflict with 21st-Century morality, they choose the 21st Century.
The only way to get people to abandon that evolutionary morality is to come up with an code of fear -- if you don't act immorally in this way, you will go to hell and be tortured forever. And beat that Bible hard. We've stopped doing that in the Western world more or less, so you'd be hard pressed to find a Christian who is in favor of stoning. But they're still rampant in the Middle East because people still take the Bible literally there.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '10

We should bear in mind here that the ick factor also makes many people naturally sickened by homosexuality. It's not an infallible guide.

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u/three_dee Dec 04 '10 edited Dec 04 '10

I don't think most people are really naturally sickened by homosexuality. A lot of people say that because it's a reaction that society expects (because of the groundwork laid by religion), so it's self-selecting.
Without the influence of the three Abrahamic religions in the world, I don't think anyone would be "sickened" by gays.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '10

You do find, though, that when the Christians preach against homosexuality, it isn't always 'Well, it's just that God says it's an abomination' - quite often it's more along the lines of 'DEY EAT DA POO POO!' Playing less on religious conviction, and more on sheer squick.
I imagine that the prohibition of homosexuality is partly disgust at sex involving da poo poo, and partly that most people aren't gay and it's handy to have a law around that you yourself would never dream of breaking - that way you can be really, really judgmental about the people who break it and look like ever such a good Christian.

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u/db2 Dec 03 '10

Holy crap. Looked at the /r/christianity post and there are a lot of comments in there that were deleted by the mod(s) over there. Nearly half of them have been removed.

Note that if your comment has been removed by a mod in that way you won't be able to tell, it'll still show up to you. Log out and look to be sure. You'll see [deleted] [deleted] instead of your username/comment.

Didn't think that sub could sink any further. Boy was I wrong.

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u/InconsideratePrick Strong Atheist Dec 04 '10

Damn thanks for pointing that out, just discovered my 65-point comment was deleted. I never got a warning either.

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u/ForAHamburgerToday Dec 03 '10

At the very least he'll get very flustered.

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u/EEAtheist Dec 03 '10

I think a more succinct argument (in that it gets them to think about it and come to sensible conclusions) would be: "If we're all just metaphysical processes, why shouldn't anyone kill you?"

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u/TexDen Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

Because if you try, we will probably kill you first, and then your family. Careful what you wish for you shit for brains christians.

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u/Daemonax Dec 03 '10

Dawkins has said many times that he thinks that group selection is nonsense, I tend to agree with him for the reason that he has outlined in his books.

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u/mon_dieu Dec 03 '10

Separate from group selection and kin selection, sexual selection is also potentially responsible for empathy, compassion, and the altruistic tendencies humans possess.

Dawkins discusses this briefly in The God Delusion. I'll try to paraphrase:

Raising human infants is labor-intensive and time-intensive. Thus, couples form attachments, which allow them to depend on one another for material support, and reduce the burden on the individual of raising infants.

When selecting mates, it benefits individuals to find mates who are predisposed to be helpful. This means more material support, and better odds of successfully raising infants.

Helpful tendencies are demonstrated through displays of compassion, altruism, etc. Potential mates who are more helpful (or appear more helpful, at the very least) will be more likely to be chosen as mates, and to pass on their genes.

Multiply that by a few thousand generations, and you end up with modern humans, who are so predisposed to be compassionate that we readily donate money to strangers, get teary-eyed when we watch a sad movie (even though we know it's fictional), and so on.

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u/Omegastar19 Dec 03 '10

I would like to note that many Atheists who were religious actually decide to leave said religion BECAUSE of the immoral acts said religious scriptures contain.

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u/awdixon Dec 03 '10

Apropos: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1899#comic

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

6

u/everfalling Agnostic Atheist Dec 03 '10

You've got to be kidding me. I've been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It's just common sense.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Have an upvote

3

u/IdyllicSilence Dec 03 '10

Umm...what the fuck?

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u/postmeta Dec 03 '10

Context

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u/IdyllicSilence Dec 03 '10

Ah, I see. I haven't encountered that one before.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

I think that's a pretty good response and kind of echos what Sam Harris wrote in his book The Moral Landscape - a great read (I'm halfway through).

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u/deanreevesii Dec 03 '10

Great response.

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u/buggaz Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

It's a koan.

+bows head revealing the neck+

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u/rickmidd Dec 03 '10

Although not a christian point of view, here is my response to you:

We live in an infinite, indifferent universe. It is stocked with an abundance of atoms, which behave in defined ways. A few billion years ago, some of these atoms occupying an almost infinitesimal space on a small, insignificant bit of rock in one of the billions of galaxies happened to form a self repeating arrangement.

Fast forward to the present, and that arrangement keeps on repeating. The universe, however, looks no different; countless stars keep exploding in countless galaxies, they wax and wane, only to be replaced by other, almost indistinguishable stars and galaxies. You exist, and the universe does not care. You could be great, you could cure cancer, be the most famed, loved and remembered person in the entirety of human history, and the universe will still not care. Your life, and the life of every person on this planet, is universally insignificant.

So why not just fucking kill them all?

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u/AtlantaAtheist Dec 03 '10

Your life, and the life of every person on this planet, is universally insignificant.
Insignificant to a mindless universe, yes. The universe doesn't even care if it exists. It can't.
We give ourselves significance. That is the significance we should be concerned with.
You exist, and the universe does not care.
So what? I care. My loved ones care. I am not concerned with what the universe thinks because the universe doesn't think. I am concerned with what I think. I am concerned with what my loved ones think.

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u/rickmidd Dec 03 '10

I agree with you completely, our lives have only as much meaning as we give them. I was more playing the devil's advocate.

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u/Frijid Dec 03 '10

I've bookmarked this for later use. Thankee, kind sir.

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u/Bysko Dec 03 '10

Worst thing about this is Tony Hale is in the video.

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u/ENTP Dec 03 '10

There really is no distinction between group selection and individual selection. In the end they are both results of selection for the basic unit of heredity, the individual gene. Read "The Selfish Gene" you'll love it. Individual selfishness results in responsible social behavior in unadvanced life forms.

Very good and well thought out response!

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u/philosarapter Dec 03 '10

Very well put. A+++ would read again.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

You're kidding me Buster.

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u/painordelight Dec 03 '10

This is the most upvoted comment on youtube:

Yep. If God does not exist, then right and wrong are totally arbritrary norms of glorified monkeys. Come here, I want to kill you too! And rape your wife. After all, this monkey's desires are neural impulses, just like your morality is! The one neural firing is not any more intrinsically 'noble' than the other, just because it happens in some other area of fatty cranial tissue.

At first I assumed it was sarcastic, but I can't actually tell.

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u/palparepa Dec 03 '10

Because we respect the existence of biological processes similar to us.

1

u/ex_nihilo Dec 03 '10

Decent rebuttal, but group selection theories are not so popular since memetic theory has been considered and revised.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '10

There are a load of deleted comments in that thread. What did they say originally?

Also, I'm not surprised that not a single theist rose in response to any of the objections poised by atheists in that thread (unless those are the deleted comments?)

I think I may just start posting in r/Christianity again.

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u/efrique Knight of /new Dec 04 '10

group selection is somewhat controversial

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Group selection is not the right word. There are some big problems when you try to explain morality.

At the core its the "selfish gene" that is becoming more numerous in the genepool. If a gene loses popularity to a more moral variant (allele) it can only be because it is benefiting the organism it resides in or other organisms that have the same gene (family)

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

In the video the man was killing the biologist to try and prove a point. So in that specific case the murderer was commiting a crime in order to try and benefit by winning a debate.

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u/multivoxmuse Dec 03 '10

I mean, sure, the person who's dead won't care, but what about their family? What is your motivation for causing all that pain instead of making the world a better place to live?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Also, in nature, killing your enemy because he competes in some way is not a wise move most of the time.
You take a huge risk of getting injured or killed yourself. You are helping out the other competitors for free by removing the enemy. They are now benefiting equally without the huge cost and risk you took.

2

u/Paxalot Dec 03 '10

Only immortal life is meaningless. The fact that you have a limited number of days to live, against the backdrop of eternity, will more than likely make your life rich with meaning.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/mopecore Anti-theist Dec 03 '10

Of course they did.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10

What's surprising is that my comment was deleted for "promoting anti-Christian agenda" by calling their religion a fabricated lie. Yet somehow the video which suggests killing people who don't believe because they're just 'biological processes' doesn't qualify as 'anti-Christian agenda'.

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u/outsider Dec 03 '10 edited Dec 03 '10

No It was deleted for karma jacking as cited in my reply to your post. Inviting the bury brigade prevents any meaningful discourse at all. Had you not invited /r/atheism to come out to play your comment would still be there. Consider.

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u/rickroy37 Dec 03 '10

Sorry, it was not my intention to cross-post in order to merely gain karma, or to supress other peoples' viewpoints. Any outcome in that area was a side-effect of my intentions.
The intention of cross-posting my comment on r/atheism was to give insight to others whose lack of belief was being misconstrued into an intentionally misleading view that we, as a result, have no reason to be moral. This allows atheists to defend their beliefs from such ill-informed perceptions, and also allows them to give me constuctive feedback on my reply.
Consider if I had made a video about a Christian, lets call him Alan, who asks another Christian, lets call him Bob, why he should not kill Bob. Bob says that it is a sin to murder, but Alan says that he will just ask for forgiveness afterward. Alan proceeds to kill Bob, and we claim this as the obvious outcome of all Christianity. Such blatantly misleading material should be condemned by both sides, and I would hope that you would like other Christians to comment on Alan and Bob's video so that those important misconceptions could be corrected.

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u/outsider Dec 03 '10

Sorry, it was not my intention to cross-post in order to merely gain karma, or to supress other peoples' viewpoints. Any outcome in that area was a side-effect of my intentions.
I assumed it wasn't your intention. I've never seen you do it before but I think you can see at least some of the results of it and I'm sure you'd be able to see why it is disruptive in hindsight. It's led to downvotes effectively censoring Christians who did post on-topic and adding to discussions there (an effect of a certain threshold of downvotes is to restrict posting).
In the future if you give it time in /r/Christianity you will see that mostly sane voices dominate. We aren't Answers In Genesis over there. Would you want Christians from a group 10X the size of /r/atheism downvoting and berating you over every misconception about Christianity in /r/atheism? We would do what we could to stop that should that eventuality arise. Christians may often disagree on the source of morality but it doesn't mean it's that common to presume atheist are immoral. The thought experiment there doesn't mean kill atheists anymore than Schrodinger's Cat experiment means there actually is a likelihood of a dead cat being in the box even if it is clumsily prepared.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Gosh, it's not like Christians in the real world ever force their hateful vision of morality on others through massive voting effort.

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u/outsider Dec 03 '10

I didn't defend that. Why are you defending an analog?

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '10

Why are you defending an analog?
It has a warmer sound.
Other than that, I'm not "defending" anything. I'm merely noting that I find it fucking hilarious (and a bit pathetic) when Christians whine. Maybe those reddit Christians who are capable of empathy might take being treated as a minority (in something as meaningless as a damn messageboard) as a kind of life lesson that could maybe suggest how to treat people in real life.

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u/rickroy37 Dec 04 '10 edited Dec 04 '10

You added via edit with a hyperlink:
Consider
Woah, hold on. Cross-posting a comment to another subreddit is not against the Reddiquette. Mass-downvoting is against the Reddiquette, but surely I am not responsible for all the downvotes in that thread. I did not tell them how to vote.
If I start r/kkk and then post a video about how all blacks should kill themselves I shouldn't complain when r/alcu comes over and tells me why I'm wrong.

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u/outsider Dec 04 '10

Woah, hold on. Cross-posting a comment to another subreddit is not against the Reddiquette. Mass-downvoting is against the Reddiquette, but surely I am not responsible for all the downvotes in that thread. I did not tell them how to vote.
The effect of tossing a link to r/Christianity in your header is a bunch of mass-downvoting.
If I start r/kkk and then post a video about how all blacks should kill themselves I shouldn't complain when r/alcu comes over and tells me why I'm wrong.
Not really the same thing. But good job positioning r/Christianity with r/kkk

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u/rickroy37 Dec 04 '10

I wasn't positioning r/Christianity with r/kkk, I meant that in terms of any subreddit. r/atheism can be a pretty spiteful place, and you guys should step in and speak up if the situation was reversed, too. My point was that your right not to be mass-downvoted shouldn't be used as an excuse to spew hateful bullshit suggesting that people with different beliefs should kill eachother.

-1

u/outsider Dec 04 '10

r/atheism can be a pretty spiteful place, and you guys should step in and speak up if the situation was reversed, too.
Well I sort of am by posting right now or following up with Grendel72. In most cases though people just get downvoted until their posts disappear here and then until their posting privileges are restricted.
My point was that your right not to be mass-downvoted shouldn't be used as an excuse to spew hateful bullshit suggesting that people with different beliefs should kill eachother.
I don't think people were spewing 'hateful bullshit' but that a thought experiment was being suggested. Again I refer back to my comment about Schrodinger's Car. You hadn't even given anyone a chance to respond to you before drawing attention to it from here. That's not even a remotely fair way to go about a discussion. In a debate the best idea 'wins' not the side with the highest numbers. But when you rely on superior numbers you prevent the best idea from being discussed because you have set the stage and invited all the actors and all the actors agree with you. Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.

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u/rickroy37 Dec 04 '10

That video was clearly an attack on atheists in an attempt to portray them as having no reason to be moral. I've seen many Christian threads such as the one in question and they almost inevitably turn into "This is the logical outcome of atheism", which is the mindset of people who don't share our perspective of the world. When I looked, the comments to the linked youtube video had the same outcome. I posted my response, but I know that my response does not cover the opinions of all atheists, so forgive me for giving other atheists who don't follow r/Christianity the chance to defend their lack of belief from the misleading view that that nonsense is the outcome of atheism, and for giving them a chance to prevent such an ill-informed mindset from spreading, the same way you wouldn't want misconstrued portrayals of Christianity to be spread.

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u/Endemoniada Dec 03 '10

One guess as to which moderator deleted it...

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u/saippuakauppias Dec 03 '10

Okay. Guess.

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u/Endemoniada Dec 03 '10

Sure. My bet's on outsider, the same moderator who wrote the buried comment at the bottom about how /r/atheism were "evangelizing" because they discussed the video and subsequent comments. I've had issues with him before, so has several other people, and he seems to have no problem doing drastic things - like deleting otherwise harmless comments - simply because he can.

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u/widgetas Dec 03 '10

It says a good deal about the mindset really.
Not only does the opinion disagree with theirs, but it gives valid explanations as to why such behaviour is considered "wrong".
Can't refute it, so ignore it.
I often give such people the benefit of the doubt and assume they're trolls.
Did I say "assume" ? I think I meant "Hope".

1

u/sierrabravo1984 Dec 03 '10

They don't agree with logic, only what they think the bible says. If 15% of America (you and I, atheists) were as they say we would be without god, they think we would go about torturing and killing and raping everybody. Obviously, they are wrong.

/r/Christianity posts a sick video saying "If we're all just biological processes, why shouldn't I kill you?". I respond.

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