I disagree: if you accept the premise that biological life (and not brain function) determines human value, then abortion becomes low-hanging fruit for saving human life-value. One law can prevent thousands of babies dying per day.
It’s like religion. If you accept that God and Hell are real, then becoming a fundamentalist Christian and trying as hard as you can to convert as many people as possible is the only ethical option.
It’s like religion. If you accept that God and Hell are real, then becoming a fundamentalist Christian and trying as hard as you can to convert as many people as possible is the only ethical option.
Nonsense. That is the most ethical of the options that your brain is willing to provide you when you ask it “what is the best option?” But if someone actually had that belief a more ethical option would be to murder as many Muslims, Atheists and Buddhists (of child bearing age) as you can. The chance that you will successfully convert any given individual is tiny and if you allow them to live to breed they will raise children doomed to hell.
An even better option is to kill all males who will not convert and keep all women (Christian and otherwise) pregnant constantly with twins (IVF, fertility drugs). The children are to be taken and raised to be loyal to your faith.
(Or you build an FAI to tile the universe with Christians with the minimum possible lifespan to qualify for heaven.)
The bible’s more coherent passages to have pretty strong claims about killing and enslaving people. But disregarding that, you’re probably right. That said, most people are not that creative. Those that are tend to wind up atheists.
The bible’s more coherent passages to have pretty strong claims about killing and enslaving people.
So God frowns upon your sin of mass murder, but you will have saved numerous souls from Hell. “Shut up and multiply,” I think the saying goes. It’s better still if you run a government, and can force conversion by the sword.
Incidentally, similar reasoning applies to infanticide if you believe that dead children go to heaven automatically. In fact, this one is probably a better bet, since small children are easier to take in a fight, and killing them will directly guarantee their salvation.
(I enjoy this topic more than is strictly proper.)
If you believe that god has the authority to define morality, than violating divine edict is immoral, regardless of your feelings on Hell. Although, that has serious problems, since divine commandments are internally contradictory...
The bible’s more coherent passages to have pretty strong claims about killing and enslaving people.
Yes, if you don’t genocide the heathens you can be sentenced to death. I think you are only allowed to enslave foreigners too. The New Testament has a somewhat less positive attitude to slaughter—on the other hand it also says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” then goes on to say that you just have to repent after you sin. It wouldn’t be ethical to not slaughter all the heathens to preempt their breeding then repenting and feeling some shame about it. Kind of like with masturbation only it provides thousands of infinities of utility.
For a sufficiently fanatical believer the most moral act may be to genocide the heathens and then go to hell for it, thus sacrificing own eternity in order to save the heathens and their children from hell. Similar beliefs were held by the Romanian Iron guard movement (they were willing to go to hell to save their nation rather than the heathens but it’s still sort of impressive).
This is like saying that anyone who takes the singularity seriously should be dedicating every waking moment to FAI theory. It’s just naive, and frankly, sounds stupid when atheists tell Christians what they would do if they “truly believed”. Evangelical Christians have put more thought into how to keep people out of hell than you have. They know, for example, that being too pushy trying to win converts just drives people away (because they’ve tried it). They also know that acts of religious terrorism, religious wars, or genecide could backfire, discrediting their religion (tried that too).
This is like saying that anyone who takes the singularity seriously should be dedicating every waking moment to FAI theory.
You are wrong.
It’s just naive
Of course it is “naive”. That’s the word you use for when people take far mode beliefs literally rather than as verbal symbols used to signal group affiliation.
Evangelical Christians have put more thought into how to keep people out of hell than you have.
No they haven’t. I was an Evangelical Christian for 22 years and did far more thinking about such things than the mean, median and mode Evangelical Christian. I am also more than passably familiar with the kind of reasoning used by Evangelical Christian leaders of various levels of shrewdness. I can assure you that next to none of them are naive enough to base their decision making on literal min-maxing of near infinite positive and negative utilities in heaven and hell. This isn’t surprising—Christianity isn’t based upon consequentialism in the first place.
That explains things, there appears to be no way back from there. What would your young self thought of you now?
The common factor here; that you need to evangelize about something; what exactly that something is, does not appear to concern you. Some examples of your evangelical ‘thoughts’ from your posts over the past few days:
… I mean that is bullshit …
… Nonsense …
… a more ethical option would be to murder as many Muslims, Atheists and Buddhists … as you can …
… An even better option is to kill all males who will not convert …
… You are wrong …
… No they haven’t …
… it is “naive” … when people take … beliefs literally …
I could go on, but that would be even more boring than the original diatribes from which these fragments were abstracted. How wrong can one possibly be; evangelism is the last thing expected on a forum which claims to be:
… devoted to refining the art of human rationality …
Please convert back to some appropriate religion, before you lose any last semblance of credibility. Perhaps then you can die a happy man, and the other users on LW can resume normal rational discourse.
One law can prevent thousands of babies dying per day.
I disagree—this is not known. Particularly the magnitude of the expected effect is hard to predict and a cost-benefit analysis requires a prediction.
The law would affect conception rates as well as birthrates, and we don’t know how ahead of time.
It would also affect rates of unwanted babies born and given up for adoption or raised in unloving or too-poor or single-mother homes. These factors affect life expectancy (also through hightened poverty and crime), which have moral weight by the “biological human life” criterion.
Some women would still do illegal or at-home or out-of-state abortions. Some of the women would also die or be injured thereby.
Enforcement of the law costs money and resources and also depends on cultural support for the law in each community.
It’s like religion. If you accept that God and Hell are real, then becoming a fundamentalist Christian and trying as hard as you can to convert as many people as possible is the only ethical option.
“God and Hell are real” doesn’t imply that whoever is not a Christian will go to hell. Even some Christians (e.g. present-day mainstream Catholics) acknowledge that.
I wonder what your last sentence implies, as I have found “present-day mainstream Catholics” to be more reasonable than many other denominations. Though it depends who you place in that group.
I disagree: if you accept the premise that biological life (and not brain function) determines human value, then abortion becomes low-hanging fruit for saving human life-value. One law can prevent thousands of babies dying per day.
It’s like religion. If you accept that God and Hell are real, then becoming a fundamentalist Christian and trying as hard as you can to convert as many people as possible is the only ethical option.
Nonsense. That is the most ethical of the options that your brain is willing to provide you when you ask it “what is the best option?” But if someone actually had that belief a more ethical option would be to murder as many Muslims, Atheists and Buddhists (of child bearing age) as you can. The chance that you will successfully convert any given individual is tiny and if you allow them to live to breed they will raise children doomed to hell.
An even better option is to kill all males who will not convert and keep all women (Christian and otherwise) pregnant constantly with twins (IVF, fertility drugs). The children are to be taken and raised to be loyal to your faith.
(Or you build an FAI to tile the universe with Christians with the minimum possible lifespan to qualify for heaven.)
http://kefkaponders.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/logical-conclusions-to-christianitys-existence-claims/
The bible’s more coherent passages to have pretty strong claims about killing and enslaving people. But disregarding that, you’re probably right. That said, most people are not that creative. Those that are tend to wind up atheists.
So God frowns upon your sin of mass murder, but you will have saved numerous souls from Hell. “Shut up and multiply,” I think the saying goes. It’s better still if you run a government, and can force conversion by the sword.
Incidentally, similar reasoning applies to infanticide if you believe that dead children go to heaven automatically. In fact, this one is probably a better bet, since small children are easier to take in a fight, and killing them will directly guarantee their salvation.
(I enjoy this topic more than is strictly proper.)
If you believe that god has the authority to define morality, than violating divine edict is immoral, regardless of your feelings on Hell. Although, that has serious problems, since divine commandments are internally contradictory...
That’s why some hold all humans are inherently and necessarily sinful.
Yes, if you don’t genocide the heathens you can be sentenced to death. I think you are only allowed to enslave foreigners too. The New Testament has a somewhat less positive attitude to slaughter—on the other hand it also says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” then goes on to say that you just have to repent after you sin. It wouldn’t be ethical to not slaughter all the heathens to preempt their breeding then repenting and feeling some shame about it. Kind of like with masturbation only it provides thousands of infinities of utility.
For a sufficiently fanatical believer the most moral act may be to genocide the heathens and then go to hell for it, thus sacrificing own eternity in order to save the heathens and their children from hell. Similar beliefs were held by the Romanian Iron guard movement (they were willing to go to hell to save their nation rather than the heathens but it’s still sort of impressive).
Yes. They say killing unbelievers is a duty, and enslaving is allowed within limits (except when killing is mandatory).
They don’t say much about the need to evangelize and convert others, though.
But you can still go to heaven via faith. And even if you can’t, then you’re sacrificing your own salvation to save others, which is very moral.
This is like saying that anyone who takes the singularity seriously should be dedicating every waking moment to FAI theory. It’s just naive, and frankly, sounds stupid when atheists tell Christians what they would do if they “truly believed”. Evangelical Christians have put more thought into how to keep people out of hell than you have. They know, for example, that being too pushy trying to win converts just drives people away (because they’ve tried it). They also know that acts of religious terrorism, religious wars, or genecide could backfire, discrediting their religion (tried that too).
TL;DR stop concern trolling Christians!
You are wrong.
Of course it is “naive”. That’s the word you use for when people take far mode beliefs literally rather than as verbal symbols used to signal group affiliation.
No they haven’t. I was an Evangelical Christian for 22 years and did far more thinking about such things than the mean, median and mode Evangelical Christian. I am also more than passably familiar with the kind of reasoning used by Evangelical Christian leaders of various levels of shrewdness. I can assure you that next to none of them are naive enough to base their decision making on literal min-maxing of near infinite positive and negative utilities in heaven and hell. This isn’t surprising—Christianity isn’t based upon consequentialism in the first place.
Avoid inflationary use of terms.
That explains things, there appears to be no way back from there. What would your young self thought of you now?
The common factor here; that you need to evangelize about something; what exactly that something is, does not appear to concern you. Some examples of your evangelical ‘thoughts’ from your posts over the past few days:
I could go on, but that would be even more boring than the original diatribes from which these fragments were abstracted. How wrong can one possibly be; evangelism is the last thing expected on a forum which claims to be:
Please convert back to some appropriate religion, before you lose any last semblance of credibility. Perhaps then you can die a happy man, and the other users on LW can resume normal rational discourse.
I disagree—this is not known. Particularly the magnitude of the expected effect is hard to predict and a cost-benefit analysis requires a prediction.
The law would affect conception rates as well as birthrates, and we don’t know how ahead of time.
It would also affect rates of unwanted babies born and given up for adoption or raised in unloving or too-poor or single-mother homes. These factors affect life expectancy (also through hightened poverty and crime), which have moral weight by the “biological human life” criterion.
Some women would still do illegal or at-home or out-of-state abortions. Some of the women would also die or be injured thereby.
Enforcement of the law costs money and resources and also depends on cultural support for the law in each community.
“God and Hell are real” doesn’t imply that whoever is not a Christian will go to hell. Even some Christians (e.g. present-day mainstream Catholics) acknowledge that.
I wonder what your last sentence implies, as I have found “present-day mainstream Catholics” to be more reasonable than many other denominations. Though it depends who you place in that group.
Presumably the Pope is not a mainstream Catholic.
“Even” as in “not only detractors of Christianity, but also some Christians themselves”. Edited to make that clearer.