Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by T A A on July 3, 2011 at 2:13am

uh... it's called acting...

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Permalink Reply by Kris Feenstra on July 3, 2011 at 2:54am

That's debatable, though your underlying point still stands.

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Permalink Reply by Apple on June 27, 2011 at 12:22pm

As others have pointed out earlier, we are attempting to talk about two different subjects as if they are the same thing. 

 

1) Is engaging in prostitution (selling or buying) more helpful or harmful for all who are involved?  (This is basically your question above)

 

2) Should engaging in prostitution be illegal? 

 

While these may superficially sound the same, the are two absolutely separate questions.  You need to understand that making something illegal does not eliminate it from from the face of the Earth.  Take alcohol for example.  Its consumption on a global scale causes, without question, more harm that good.  Certainly humanity as a whole would be better off if alcohol did not exist.  But banning it does not make it go away, it simply makes it illegal.  When making laws we must consider the conditions that the law will create. 

 

One more example: sex education for the youth.  It is well known that there are many more teen pregnancies in areas were abstinence only education is taught.  Just because we teach teenagers about safe sex practices does not mean that we are telling them to go have sex.  We need to go about things in this way to make practical, positive, real world changes. 

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Permalink Reply by Kristian David Gore on June 27, 2011 at 12:48pm

George Carlin put it the best way "Selling's legal, F@%King's legal! So why isn't selling f@%king legal?"

In Nevada there is legal prostitution that is safer for the consumer and seller so I see some benefit to legalized (regulated) prostitution.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:40pm

Perhaps the more relevant question would be, how do we all derive our moral code? Do we make judgments solely based on the benefits we receive from performing a certain action? If so, is it acceptable to gain a level of benefit at the expense of someone else? Each individual determines their own moral code; in this sense it is relativistic, but we don't live in a bubble. Each action we make will somehow affect others and it is this fact that allows us to make judgments about moral scenarios. It is obvious that many atrocities in history have been religiously motivated and even mandated by a religious deity. These atrocities would be condemned in any other situation, but somehow they get overlooked once god puts his stamp of approval on them. Society has evolved despite religious dogma and not because religious belief has compelled us into morality. Many atheists are moral, but where do these morals come from? This is the question being posed. Right and wrong can't simply be based on what provides an individual pleasure. One must take into account the consequences of each action and realize that if something fails to be a net positive for the affected individuals then it should be avoided. It would be far more beneficial and productive to hear how others make these judgments.

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Permalink Reply by Tanya Wells on June 27, 2011 at 12:58pm

Thanks, babe. This is the better way of deriving the responses that I'm looking for.

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Permalink Reply by Kristian David Gore on June 27, 2011 at 1:18pm

What morality exists in the bible? A few tidbits here and there that are relevant today sandwiched between genocides, infanticides, incest, human sacrifice, child abuse, rape, and the atrocities continue. Ask a Christian if it was moral for god to kill all the first born of Egypt and they will go into explaining that it had to be done. They dismiss the mass murder of children because god did it so it is OK. If god tells them to kill their son instead of seeking psychiatric help they simply pray they would have the courage Abraham did.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hughes on June 27, 2011 at 1:21pm

Human morality and ethics evolved long before and quite separate from any religion, especially crapstianity and jesse's crap; that's the way both sound to me anyway. ;-)

"Doing the right thing" was a positive action in the early hominid groups and they must have collectively realized it and reinforced the idea probably before humans developed the language to express it.

They just misappropriated the moral high ground before anyone saw it coming and having done so that claimed that all who didn't agree with their version was a "sinner" and headed to the hot place; sort'a like Texas this June.  100 deg. F in Decatur today and all this week; whew!

One can only wonder why some bible-pounder hasn't realized how much fun it is for us sinners to get it on in air conditioned rooms when compared to un air conditioned and started trying to outlaw AC systems or at least to call them agents of the devil and sin. ;-)

 

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Permalink Reply by Camila Quevedo on June 27, 2011 at 4:07pm

So your saying that a lose of religion, or a lack of a belief in almighty bully, causes atheist to have no moral code? I say that complete bull. Humans by nature are empathetical animals, we couldn't have a society let alone modern civilization without empathy. That is to understand the emotions and feelings of other people. By this empathy we can draw our moral code naturally, instinctively. You can see this in many different social animal groups, at least on a basic level. And from that basic level you can build up and add more complexity.

 

Sorry, I've just never heard of an atheist completely abandoning all morals or go "the exact opposite extreme religion", whatever that means.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hughes on June 27, 2011 at 4:24pm

Agreed, that's stupid.  However, in relation to the very concept of religion I am "exact opposite".  I do not do the church thing in any shape, form or fashion and have not set foot in a sanctuary for over 20-years and have no intention of ever doing so for the rest of my life. 

Be that as it may that does not imply that I abandon all moral precepts; I am the "exact opposite extreme" as I place a high value on morality and ethical behavior rather than give it only public lip service as I've seen many "believers" do.  Religion allows some to be the "exact opposite extreme" as they claim it's justified by some stupid and idiotic verse in some nefarious volume of Bronze Age utterances they call their bible.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on June 27, 2011 at 9:26pm

[...] religious claim that people cannot be moral without religion [...]

 

The problem with that statement is that the emphasis has been shifted to an erroneous paradigm. It is NOT about CAN or CANNOT. We all "can".

 

Any child will learn any morals you teach them. Later on in life, experiences will create amendments to those morals, but overall, morality is set in early infancy.

 

Anyone "can" be moral, the point is do "I" have to abide by "your" morals. In this modern globalised world, many people would like to impose their sense of morality onto others, that is where the word "morality" is horribly abused, some say it's nothing but a personal sense of ethics, which I entirely disagree with. Morality is created/written, by a human, within a given social context, in order to create ORDER. The very essence of the word morality is that it's a set of rules, the question is  WHO creates those rules, you or me?????? The people who wrote the bible and religious tenets which are taught to children had a political agenda. And to be blind to that political agenda is equivalent to willfull blindness.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on June 27, 2011 at 9:01pm

Where are all these atheists abandoning all ethics???  I think this is just christian bullshit.

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