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Permalink Reply by Sassan K. on June 26, 2011 at 3:21pm

I agree but with these things sometimes things can get murky. What exactly is a violation of the rights of others? I will provide some murky issues such as drugs, prostitution, statutory rape (just coming from the top of my head).

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:41pm

I was questioning why some feel as if things such as prostitution should be legalized…Like what would be the benefit to society as a whole? Did anyone who agreed with the legalization of prostitution think of all the ramifications that could incur by allowing a freedom such as that (from the other thread). 

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Permalink Reply by Keith Pinster on June 27, 2011 at 12:49pm

Actually, that's an easy one - because it can be regulated.  The fact is, you can NEVER stop it.  It doesn't matter how illegal you make it.  It's kind of like gun laws.  The more restrictive you make it, the more criminals have guns and the less honest, law-abiding citizens can defend themselves.  However you feel about guns, they should NEVER be made illegal.  Same with prostitution.  You will never, ever stop it by legislation.  So, the better choice to to make it legal so that it can be regulated and make it safer for everyone involved.  Sure, in a perfect world, if you make something illegal, it would stop it.  But you would be much better off if you stopped living in a dream world and start seeing the world for what it is.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 27, 2011 at 1:10pm

In Quebec, profiting from prostitution is illegal, soliciting on the street is illegal, but choosing to sell your own body for your own complete revenue is not illegal. I personally think that is the best policy.

 

For example, a university friend of mine (we were both studying biochemistry at the time) paid for all her university studies by prostituting herself for just over a year, during college (two years preceding university in Quebec). Two young beautiful young women ran the business out of a nice apartment and became high class call girls. They made a very brisk business. She is now a top exec in a big pharmaceutical company.

 

I also like the motto "a man who pays for sex is not a man".

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Permalink Reply by Sassan K. on June 28, 2011 at 4:03am

I think legalizing prostitution would actually reduce diseases and would benefit society through taxation and reduced police costs. Look at Holland, they operate pretty fine there with low crime rates and low disease rates.

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Permalink Reply by Fabio Parente on June 26, 2011 at 6:27am

How does going the exact opposite extreme of religion equate having no ethical code? Moral and ethical judgement should be based on the net positives it can provide for the whole of society, and indeed it is in utilitarian ethical systems. They are entirely different from "ideologies." Ideologies provide no rational foundation for the moral and ethical commandments they issue and as such cannot be efficiently internalised. Ideologies should definitely be abandoned, they're not reliable.

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:43pm

Please explain your definition of ideologies for me.  My definition of ideology is simply a manner of thinking.

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Permalink Reply by Pruthvi Krishna on June 26, 2011 at 6:41am

Being an atheist doesnt make you a bad person. Many theists(hindus) that i know have good morals not because they fear god but simply because they know the good from the bad. All this thing about being good so that god doesnt punish seems silly like my mom used to scold me for getting out into the rain when i was 7 years old. GROW UP people. Dont you know the good form the bad???  Assume that god was busy elsewhere and dint monitor Earth for 10 days and theres no way god will come to know what you did. Will you still follow moral ethics or turn loose ??? 

PS : Im an atheist

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:46pm

I don’t think that a god created a sense of good and bad…I simply figured out on my own what I consider good and bad by establishing that what causes more harm than good is something that in most instances we can do without.

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Permalink Reply by Suzanne Olson-Hyde on June 26, 2011 at 7:30am

"Do we need to abandon all moral ideologies because we are atheist?" What the????

 

"Moral judgment can be based on the net positives it can provide for the whole of society."

Of course, that is the whole point - something that the christians that I know and heard of - just don't do.

This is what annoys me most - christians think they have cornered the market on morality.

 

**During 10 years in prison, of those executed for murder -  65% were Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.

 

I'm not counting communist countries, 'cause they wouldn't say anything anyway - probably get shot.

But very poor countries like Philippines, where birth control is banned if you are a catholic, producing a lot of children, which cannot be fed or clothed or educated, where Christianity and Islam are on the rise, where, flagellation till their backs are raw and covered in blood,  and re-enacted crucifixion, complete with nails through the hands and feet, are on the rise...

Mormons and their many wives churning out dozens of children, even if their body just cannot take another pregnancy - the likes of Ted Haggard and his three years of gay sex, and all the other evangelicals, weeping and wailing when they get caught  - the list goes on and on and on....

 

I would pit my morals and ethics and the morals and ethics of my fellow Atheists, against any christian any day - Catholics and their protected pedophiles, from the Pope down -  Jehovas Witness and their protected pedophiles - teachers at private schools - a teacher at  one of Sydney's most prestigious anglican private schools, been teaching there for twelve years - and a ring of his cohorts, so far 11 in all, caught with pictures of child torture and rape, from the age of eighteen months old.

The million and millions of dollars collected by all these christian charlatans.

 

Now tell me of the morals and ethics of christians!!!!!

As soon as someone makes the statement 'I am a christian", I run.

 

**Zuckerman, Phil. "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns", chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK - 2005.

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:50pm

I'm in total agreement with you on all statements made. I simply posed the question, I did not intend to state that i feel we should abandon our ideologies.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on June 27, 2011 at 9:24pm

From the way the OP was worded, I thought you had assumed we already had abandoned them.  ;-)

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