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@DavidAZZ
There is no biblical reference in what happens to infants' souls when they die.
The Bible does explain what happens to every single human being: they go to hell, unless they accept the gospel.
It is unknown and since no baby or fetus has come back to life to tell of theirs tortures or heavenly experiences, we Christians can only know that God is just in his ways.
That has two interpretations. 1. You would still call it justice if God tortured infants for all eternity. 2. You believe God would never do something like that, because he is just.
My personal belief is that God takes the soul of that fetus or infant and give it another chance elsewhere.
But since the fetus hasn't developed any personality traits or conscious memories, so it still has the default soul. To say that the soul is reincarnated has the same effect as saying it never received. The end result either way is that 2 fetuses are born, but only one of them grows up, and only one soul goes to heaven or hell.
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@Best.Korea
Yeah. You fight against a living stone statue 50 times your height. Stab its toes enough times and it will die.
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@Best.Korea
Whats even the logic in being able to dodge attacks from someone 100 times stronger than you.
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@Savant
Here are my honest thoughts about the concept of personhood. You can ask any questions or challenges you may have. Or you can present your own thoughts first.
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Some people define personhood to mean simply being a member of our species. But that renders the word redundant, because it would simply be a synonym for human.
I personally believe that personhood is an emergent property, not an inherent one. That it is the agregate of many important mental functions. Things like abstract intelligence, self-awarenes and capacity for moral considerations. When these psychological qualities mature, personhood emerges. Because these mental qualities exist on a spectrum, so does personhood. You cannot draw a line in the sand where on one side you have no personhood but on the other side you have full pershood. But we have at least 2 usefull benchmarks. Before you develop a brain, you have no mental functions and thus have no personhood. When you are a fully developed healthy adult, you are definitely a person.
This view may raise alarms in the minds of those that only apply moral reasoning to those with personhood. However, I don't believe that moral value is binary. Just because something is not a person does not automatically mean that it has no moral value. A dog is not a person, but it still has moral value. Similarly, even if a human is brain damaged to the point where they are mentally on par with a dog, that does not mean that they have no moral value, nor that they should be denied their human rights. Moral value scales with personhood for sure, but also with the ability to feel pain and the desire for self preservation, just to name a few.
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@Tradesecret
I think that the diffrent moral systems all have their merit. You act as if me being a utilitarianist would be a gotcha moment. What of it? Does your prefered moral framework say that rape is moral? Does it say that preventing rape is immoral? For what reason? You say that God permits all the rape because it is part of history. But it is only part of history because God permited and authored it. So God allows rape because he allows rape. You are using circular reasoning.
Governments don't need to be omniscient or omnipotent to prevent rape. They could write a law or build an army to prevent most rapes.
That law does exists and it is called the anti-rape-law. That army exists and it is called the police. Unfortunately the police can't be everywhere, they can't know of every rape and they can't instantly teleport to the crime scene even if they knew that rape was about to occur. Thus, the government literally cannot be present at every rape, and can by definition not be an accomplice.
I don't see any reason why God judging evil NEEDS to be defended.
So according to your logic it is fair to kill all humans because they commit evil. Then it would also be fair to kill all rapists.
I never said that any rape didn't occur without God's permission.
So you do admit that every rape occurs only because because God permits it. Regardless of his motive, that fact makes him an accomplice.
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@Tradesecret
I am well aware of that option. I was just waiting for someone to raise that point so that I could adress their excact articulation of it.
Infants of believers go to Heaven as well.
This naturally implies that infants of nonbelievers go to hell. This means that the vast majority of infants are going to hell. In the Bible God enacts multiple genocides and kills thousands of infants. So God chose to create them. He then elects to murder them and torture them for all eternity. So God doesn't love these people he created.
the Reformed church for instance doesn't believe in the libertarian free will or choice of people to become believers in the first place.
Then they believe in a God that wants to have more people in hell. Without libertarian free will it is God that chose whether or not we believe in him. God in that view is specifically chosing to create people that will end up in hell, instead of people that will believe in him and get saved. So that kind of God does not want everyone saved.
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@Best.Korea
You played Dark Souls and got traumaticed. (for legal reasons thats not defamation, its a joke).
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@Tradesecret
You are making less and less sense. Utilitarianism is not the only moral system that categorically condemns rape. And you have not even tried to adress the fact that governments are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. They cannot prevent every rape.
The world could be rid of evil. Just drop a nuke. Is that what you want?
You are the one defending a God that commited worldwide genocide in order to try and fail to get rid of evil. An omnipotent God failed to do something, ridiculous.
Regarding Jesus Christ. God's perfect plan to get rid of evil is to let the rapist enter into heaven if he is part of the correct god club.
You say you reject my last assertion. Namely, the fact that No rape has ever occured without God's implicit permission. But you accept that God is present at every rape. That leaves only two possibilities. For each rape, God is either allowing it to happen or he doesn't. And if an omnipotent God doesn't allow something to happen, it doesn't occur. Therefore, for any event to occur, God has to permit it. Therefore, No rape has ever occured that God did not allow to happen. This is undeniable.
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@Tradesecret
I expect that a divine author is much more dimensional than just a human and as such his characters can come to life.
M;y argument is that human authors are just putting ink on paper. Any evil their stories contain is just an idea, not something the author actually created. You are the one that compared God to a human. You wrote "In a murder mystery book, the author is not the murderer." this is true for a human story, where the characters are not real. But the story God is writing is not simply ink on paper, it is real. The suffering that he is writing is real. The evil he is writing is real and his doing.
Many governments and organisations have the power to stop some evil going on - but choose to pursue other avenues.
This is a nonsensical counter. Governments aren't specifically allowing all of the rapes to happen, they are simply unable to detect and prevent all of them.
Because every government has the power to put every male into prison as soon as he is born.
This is a lie, and a ridiculous one at that. And how would this even stop all rapes. Female on female rape occur as well.
But it is no less silly than your idea that unless God stop every rape then he is an accomplice as well.
If you witness a rape happening right in front of you, and you have a gun, yet you just allow the crime to happen, then yeah you are an accomplice. Governments are not everywhere, and it would be evil and impossible for any society to imprison everyone. God is everywhere, so he is present at every rape, and he has the power to stop every rape in ways that don't harm non-rapist.
God is witness to every rape. No rape has ever occured without God's implicit permission.
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There are only two possibilities if we assume hell is real:
- Children and infants go to hell.
- Children and infants do not go to hell.
Each of these options are problematic for the Christian fundamentalist.
Option 1: Children and infants go to hell. They died before they could accept Jesus as their lord and savior. The children in the old testament that God had violently slaughtered along with their parrents: yeah, they are in hell. They were created by God, killed by God and then tortured by God for all eternity.
Option 2: Children and infants do not go to hell. This must be explained by at least one of these options:
- You have to actually have a certain level of maturity to be able to commit a sin, and you have to sin before becomming eligible for hell.
- Jesus saves all the children regardless of their lack of faith while they were alive.
- Children don't have souls, so they go nowhere.
1 and 2 have disturbing implications. If children automatically go to heaven, then they are better off being aborted or infanticided. Because if they grow up they have to exchange their ticket to heaven with a ticket to hell. By dying early, they not only avoid the hell here on earth, they also escape the actuall literal hell. And if children don't have souls then they are no better than animals according to Christian logic.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Genocides? Name me one in the Bible, that God commands.Infanticides? Name me one in the Bible, that God commands.
"Go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have. Don't leave a thing; kill all the men, women, children, and babies;" 1 Samuel 15.3.
Also:
- God killed all the firstborn in Egypt
- God killed everyone on earth except for Noah
- God destroyed Sodoma and Gamorah
- God ordered the genocide of Jerico and a hundred other cities in the book of Joshua
- God led foreign kingdoms to invade and genocide on Israeli soil
- GOD DID NOT PROTECT HIS PEOPLE FROM THE HOLOCAUST; so that had to be part of his plan aswell.
I am simply saying that it is un-biblical to commit suicide for the purpose of getting to heaven.
My point is that a christian is going to heaven regardles of suicide or not. Therfore, they are not commiting suicide in order to get to heaven, they are taking suicide to escape life on earth. They would rather exist in the void for some decades before going to heaven than spend some more decades here on earth. You have not yet substanciated why people that would do this are automatically not real christians.
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@Tradesecret
You can't go down to the shop and buy a bottle of evil. You can't build an evil.
Evil is not a substance or an omission, it is a label. You can buy a bottle of new deadly disease. You can build concentration camp.
The author just has a creative imagination but is not guilty of murder or of creating evil.
That is only because the characters in the book aren't actually real. When God has authored countless genocides as well as thousand of diseases, that is evil. Even if you were only witness to a crime but had the power to stop it - you would still be an accomplice. Especially when talking about a God that doesn't even need to take any risk to prevent all the crimes. God is an accomplice to all the rapes in history, because he had all the power to stop it, but he chose not to.
God also chose to create people with DNA that led them to have mental health problems that lead to them commiting evil. God must be held accountable for this no?
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@philochristos
Sam,
Preservation of free will cannot be a valid motive for God to ignore all of the evil in this world. God preserving free will is not enough to dispell my argument.
My original point was that if everyone is goint to bow to God, then God would need to violate the free will of all those people who would never choose to do that willingly. Your counter was that maybe they all do so willingly. That was a bad counter because its implications are firmly unbiblical. So since we know that your argument would render hell empty, and an empty hell is unbiblical, your argument must be unbiblical. My point wasn't that hell would be empty, but that your argument is unbiblical.
You say that children getting malaria is because people freely choose to procreate. Sure, children existing is a prerequisite for children getting malaria, but that is not the same as it being the main cause. By that logic you could also blame all suffering on the parrents of whoever experiences it. You are dodging the question with absurdities. The question is this: how does free will JUSTIFY or EXPLAIN the refusal of omnibenevolent God to cure children of malaria? You have not answered this question. You have instead argued that malaria as demonic natural evil is not an oxymoron. This is irrelevant, because your argument is still wrong. Malaria isn't demonic, it happens purely by natural causes, we know this based on lots of evidence. You have not yet justified why free will prevents God from curing children with malaria.
The apologist argument relies upon the notion that to protect free will means that you cannot prevent their decisions from being executed. "God cannot stop rape because that would infringe on rapist's free will.". The problem with this is when two free wills make contradicting choices about the same subject - sex vs no sex. In this case God gets to choose which free choice is going to be enforced. He can be passive and allow the rape, or he can prevent it. You said that being raped doesn't contradict free will. I countered that preventing a rape would also not contradict free will then. You ask why this matters, I will explain. If God views being overpowered by a rapist as compatible with free will, then he must also view being overpowered by God as compatible with free will. Thus, he could prevent the rape without violating free will. You cannot say that God allows rape in order to preserve free will.
Going to hell is only a choice if you have the option to choose not to go there. It is unbiblical to say that any human can choose never to sin. You can choose what sins to commit, but you cannot choose not to commit any, because everyone is born with flaws and sinfull natures. For this reason it is impossible to avoid hell without faith in Jesus. So if you have never even been exposed to the idea of Jesus, you literally can not choose to avoid hell. For these people Hell is not a free choice.
You say that some people would never bow to Jesus even when threatened with hell. That contradicts the bible verse saying that everyone is going to bow.
You are strawmanning my argument. I am not saying that punishment duration should be linked to crime duration. I am saying that the severity of the punishment should be linked to the severity of the crime. Hell is a punishment way to severe for any crime possible to commit. You cannot possibly "lower" or "distribute" this excessively cruel punishment across infinity to make it fair. That is disregarding the fact that your theories are firmly unbiblical. You can lower the torture all you want over time, but the fact that it is infinite solitary confinement would make the it sum up to infinity - which would make it unfair. You can claim that infinities cannot be realistically experienced - but after a billion billion billion billion years the punishment would already have far surpassed what can be seen to have any semblance of fairness.
You have not adressed this argument: a God that allows demon posession should be fine with using angel posession to prevent rapes and murders, yet he doesn't.
So in conclusion, free will is not a good excuse for God allowing all of the evil here on earth, and commiting the biggest possible evil of all, hell.
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@philochristos
You propose the idea that maybe every single human ever is going to freely chose to bow when in the presence of Jesus. If that is the case then every single human would be recognizing and accepting Jesus as their Lord. This in turn would render hell completely empty. I don't think this argument of yours makes sense.
You say that free will can explain malaria but then you fail to explain malaria with free will. Parents chose to bring children into this world with all the risks that entails, but that is not an explanation for malaria. God created malaria unprompted. He then proceeds to not help children with malaria. That is his choice, not the parrents. He would not be violating the free will of the parrents by curing their child. Quite the opposite, they will be praying to him and he will ignore them. As for your theory that free will of demons explain natural evil - that is a contradiction of terms. Demonic induced evil is by definition not natural. And we know for sure that malaria is a natural evil, not a demonic one.
Your rebuttal to the point about rape is that being raped is not a suspension of your free will, because you have chosen to resist but simply lack the strenght to stop it. I can turn that argument on its head. God can prevent rape by putting an invisible wall between the would-be-rapist and the target. Free will is not suspended, the choice to rape has still been made, but he just cannot physically execute it. God could even just tell him in a vision that rape is wrong - because according to your logic, the overwhelming obedience to God when he shows his face is perfectly consistent with free will. So there are multiple ways for God to stop rape that are compatible with free will.
Hell is very much connected to the free will argument. You say that nobody deserves salvation. I can grant that without losing my case. Infinite punishment for finite crimes is by definition unjust and excesively cruel. So even if nobody deserves heaven, nobody deserves an eternity in hell. The apologist will say that this is not God being unjust and excesively cruel, it is us humans who choose to live in hell because we reject God and don't want to live in heaven with him. This is a bad argument because nobody who was aware of the existence of hell would choose to go there, heaven would be preferable even if they didn't like God personally. Especially the people who never heard of hell or God, these people never chose to go to hell. They were created by God with flaws, and are tortured for eternity because of those flaws. They never had a free choice to go there.
To the point of demonic posession. You say that God allows for you to literally loose control of your body, just so that a demon can enact evilness. Then why does he not send his angels to posess wicked people before they rape and kill children. It seems like he is only okay with posessions that are evil.
In conclusion, your arguments create more problems that they solve.
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Apologists claim that God is not evil even though he allows all of the evil. That he just appears evil because he respects our free will. This is patently false, for multiple reasons:
- God overides free will on multiple occations. He hardens the heart of pharao so he can continue torturing the Egyptians. He is also many times using world leaders to enact his will - without them even knowing or consenting. He is even going to force every knee to bow for him when he returns.
- The children and infants never chose to be sick with malaria, so there is no free will to overide in order to heal them. God chose to create malaria, not a human, and then he continually choses to ignore the cries of all its victims. Whose free will is he respecting in this case?
- Why does God respect the free will of the rapist, but not the free will of the victim? Doing nothing is the equivalent of siding with the rapist.
- God is sending to hell many people that were never even introduced to the concept of an almighty God. People that were only exposed to primitive religions and were never faced with the question of accepting or rejecting Jesus. These people never chose hell, but yet were born destined to go there.
- How can someone have free will if they are possesed by demons? The Biblical stories about demon possesions are proof that God doesn't guarantee our free will.
So in conclusion, the Biblical God cares jack shit about free will, and apologist need to find a better answer to the problem of evil.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Nope. You would be putting faith in your action (suicide) to get you to heaven because you can't get to heaven unless you are dead.
Suicide is not the key to heaven, Jesus is. Suicide is simply to run towards the door because you cannot bear the cold outside. You still must have faith than upon reaching the door the key will work and you will get warm inside. All this decision requires is that you don't believe that suicide automatically destorys the key.
Suicide is not part of Gods plan in anyone's life, because God came to bring life, not death.
Hundreds of genocides, plagues, famines, animal sacrifices and infanticides have been part of Gods plan - according to the Bible itself. God brings life AND death, read your Bible.
God doesn't prevent sins, or bad deeds because he wants to, because that would take away free will.
If Christians get to heaven despite all of their sin, but suicide automatically sends you to hell, then that fact sure seems like something really important to write in the Bible.
Jeremiah 29:11" For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
This is taken completely out of context. God is not here adressing all humans or even all Christians. This is cherry picking. Find a verse that actually adresses suicide. Also, if this was actually adressed to suicidal people, then it would be a freaking lie. The fact that they take their life is proof that they didn't prosper, but were in fact harmed - if not by God then by the world he created and refused to protect them from because of a vague idea of "free will" or some shit. He didn't even inform them of the ticket straight to hell that suicide suposedly gives you. Does that sound like a God that really cares about people commiting suicide?
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@Best.Korea
Creating a logical system based on assumptions is somewhat usefull, because you can explore the implications of you assumptions. Then we can check those implications up against facts. For example, assuming Biblical inerancy, a global flood is implied. We can then check in with science to find out if a global flood did occur. Since science shows us a world in which that never happened, the base assumption must be wrong. Hence, Biblical erancy is proven.
The problem is when people never check the implications of their assumptions up against facts, or when they selectively ignore facts that clash with their conclusions.
You don't always have to start out with facts, but you have to bring them in sooner or later.
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@Best.Korea
Premise 1:Sun exists.orIt is false that Sun exists.
That is a truism. Anyone can create a truism, but it is how you utilize it in your argument that is crucial.
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@YouFound_Lxam
[suicide] proves that you aren't really a Christian
This is the no true Scotsman fallacy. There are billions of christians, it's intelectually dishonest to make such a broad statement without any evidence.
you just took your faith off of God and put it into yourself and your own plan to have a better life.
Nope - that is an absurd statement. You would literally be ending your life that you have control over, and putting your faith in God and his heaven.
So true faith in God's plan and word, belief in him, and accepting him as your Lord and Savior is what gets you into heaven.
If you have faith in God's plan that means you must logically believe that your suicide was predicted and that God did not want to prevent it, because if he wanted to he would have.
Suicide is not part of Gods plan.
How do you know that? Biblically speaking, Gods plan so far has included countless genocides, famines, holy wars, infanticides, plagues, the slaughter of thousand of sentient animals, just to name a few. And that is only that which God did himself or divinely sanctioned.
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Pascals wager assumes that the OMNIBENEVOLENT GOD is going to torture atheists for all eternity, while givng theists an eternal paradise.
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@TheUnderdog
People who call themselves pro-life seem to stop caring about life as soon as they are born. They generally oppose universal healthcare, social security for single mothers, cheap and accesible education and the living wage. More grotesquely many support the detention and deportation of immigrants, the protection of a corrupt and trigger happy police system, many even support foreign invasions and bombing, not to mention the diplomatic and military support of genocides like the one in Gaza.
I somewhat agree with you in saying that not every death is equal. For example, it would be less unfortunate if a homeless person died in an accident than a doctor, because the death of the doctor also carries with it another layer of loss for society, maybe even leading to further death down the line caused by lack of said doctor's presence. Or how the assasination of an important public figure can lead to public unrest or even war. Though I don't think that the rich as a rule are more valuable than the poor. And that is because one doesn't become rich by providing society orders of magnitude more value than the working classman. One becomes rich by syphoning in the value created by the working class.
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Long stick with metal at the end. We would never have come so far without that basic combination.
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I got 22015 words with a top 6.6%. But in reality I think I barely scratch top 10.
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I got 22015 words with a top 6.6%.
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@Greyparrot
America has been killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians since the end of ww2 at least. America was the successor to the British empire, and they kill people and start numerous wars for resources, power and the continued dominance of capitalism. There is a two-party system were it's impossible to vote against war because both parties are pro-war.
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I am not a female but I'm pretty sure that's different from individual to individual.
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@Best.Korea
You never claimed to be smart, that much is true. But your writings above show that you are smart. At least much smarter than your arguments in our debates.
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@Best.Korea
If you are actually smart why didn't you show it in our debates?
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@secularmerlin
@3RU7AL
When people starve during a temporary famine in a poor, wartorn and underdevelop country that happens to be socialist, "big government" is at fault.
When people starve, get bancrupted for no reason, loose their jobs, become homeless, lack medical care and get wrongfully shot or incarcerated for years
but the country is capitalist...then the story is different. There is suposedly a "free market", an oh so important independence from government.
As you said in other words, the job of the police is to protect the unfair society we live in rather than the people living in it. The hungry, the unemployed, the homeless, the poor, these are all defined by what the GOVERNMENT decides is ok to take from people. The law grants the owner class the right to throw people out of their homes, raise prices unreasonably, fire people, lower wages and so forth. Sure, blame "market forces", "individual responsiblity" or "bad apples", that doesn't take away from the fact that the police will show up and remove people from their homes, lock them up or shoot them. The basis of capitalism as an economic system is big government, the big brother that will crush you unless you follow the rules of an unfair game.
Saying that government enforcing inequality is SMALL, while government enforcing equality is BIG, is as nonsensical as conservative arguments get.
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@zedvictor4
To fight progressive social change is almost never viewed positively in hindsight, and there is a good reason for that. What conservatives don't realise is that they are most often preserving the worst aspects of society. This conservation-mindset has led to the defence of feudalism, monarchy, slavery, patriarchy, racism, oppression, imperialism, capitalism and various other institutions which have caused immense harm. My point is not that every conservative defends all of these problems, but that every social change, no matter how positive, will be fought with tooth and nails in the name of conservatism. And thus conservatives serve as a reliable tool for the ruling classes - because they will always defend what is instead of striving for what should be.
You've got to either re-educate the world, or re-edit the species.
That is the problem. Most conservatives throughout history and to this day have no chance of changing their minds in a significant way. There simply is no way to get everyone on board for social change. It is for this very reason that progressives couldn't simply show how their cause was just, they had to fight for justice every step of the way, and they did throughout history. People had to fight for man's right, for poor man's right, for black man's right, for woman's right, for children's right, for worker's right and for freedom and for equality and for rule by law rather than by personal whims of the powerfull. The frontlines have changed a lot since the time of slavery, but there is always battles to be fought and territory to be disputed.
The slogan of "small government" is a simple tactic by todays conservatives. A government reduced to a police force and military will ensure only the rich gets to enjoy economic prosperity and security. The desperate masses, both domestic and abroad, are ruled by an iron fist by the supposedly "small government". Instead of lifting people out of poverty, they shoot them, segregate against them, deny them basic necesities and allow their exploitation by cruel corporations. Some even want to strip them of their right to vote. The "small government" conservatives speak of spends trillions bombing civillians abroad. Why is spending the money fixing real problems worse?
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Somebody recently proposed that we remove the right to vote from people receiving welfare, or in other words regressing back a century or two in terms of political fairness, towards an oligarcic type of republic like in ancient rome. I believe we should be moving in the opposite direction, working to improve society. I am a firm believer in letting ethics be the guiding compass in society, and that includes politics and economics. The US has a lot to work on in that regard.
I propose:
- Abandoning private prisons and mass incarceration, focus on preventative work like curbing poverty and improving education.
- Subsidizing green technology and food production with low impact on the enviroment (cuting subsidies to oil companies, weapons manufacturers, etc).
- Cutting back on military spending. Prioritise saving lives through better healthcare rather than with highly expensive, only slightly improved military tech.
- Encourage and protect workers unions, prevent union busting, enforce workers rights, even for part-time workers.
- Ending homelessness. This would only cost 20 billion dollars, and the government would save money in the long run
I support small government. That is, one that smoothly solves large problems from the roots instead of arbitrarily applying large-scale violence to fight symptoms.
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@Intelligence_06
You deserve to thrive, not just to survive.
Couldn't have said it bettery myself.
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@3RU7AL
every citizen should receive either direct or indirect benefits from their governmentthat's the whole point of having a government in the first place
Exactly!
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@3RU7AL
Excluding the poor entirely from political life like proposed would reduce America to the same low level of democracy as in ancient rome. Rome was an empire that literally slaughtered slaves for entertainment and plundered through conquest. Also, greek republics ran on slavery and low paid workers, and only landowners could vote. In all three, only the richest families hold important positions. Clearly, good'ol 'western civilisation' might be returning, unless we can oppose the powerfull and fight for an ethical and just world.
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@ebuc
Perhaps individuals are likened to oxygen. No oxygen and we dont exist. Oxygen is the in-spiriting factor.
The idea that air/wind is a magical life-force is found in many religions including judaism and christianity. This "spirit" is what makes dead matter alive. God, the original spirit, is the omniprescent atmosphere, whose breath made a clump of dirt into a human named Adam.
There is a connection between oxygen and personhood, both mythologically and chemically.
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@CoolApe
The people that think we need large taxes are people that simply love large government.
I support SMAL GOVERNMENT. By that I mean a government wich fullfills its REAL role: it protects, supports and cares for its citicens. It doesn't spend a quadrillion dollars on bombing foreign people, and instead spends the money on better schools, more accecible quality healthcare, cheaper public transportation and well funded research institutions (and doesn't simply allow private corporations to profit from public innovation). I believe that a government which only serves the strong and independent, as you suggest, is the real "large government" we should be afraid of.
I don't assume they sit on their ass all day or assume they don't have job.
Of course you don't, that would be absurd. What you are doing, which I only find slightly less unreasonable, is to assume that welfare is somehow an extra (undeserved) favour from society. Far from it. Those who need welfare are working class people who are treated as sh*t by capitalism. Society owes these human beings compensation for allowing and defending their exploitation by an unstable, unfair, greedy and alledgedly "free" market economy. In this day and age of unprecedented worker productivity and industrial economy, only grave economic injustice prevents everyone from living good lives. Welfare is just a surrogate for economic and social justice. The masses deserve WAY more than what little wages they earn
we don't want the rich to be only ones represented in government
How many desparete people are gonna chose living standard over an abstract concept of "representation". Note how, as already stated, the poor are already unmotivated for voting, even without their lifeline on the line (pun intended). We already have only two different awfull candidates each election, both of which want to invade other countries and ignore all injustices in their own. The rich already have somewhat of a monopoly on political power in the form of lobbying and pre-election funding filter (only those who get adequate funding will have a chance in the election). Furthermore, the rich are at this very moment severely overrepresented in the political sphere, in addition to being uncontested kings of important economic decisions nationwide. With their economic power and armies of workers and lawyers corporations can evade taxes, pressure local politicians, bust opposition and supress regulation on a regular basis.
Make no mistake, the poor already have virtually no representation in government. Do we want to expand the influence of the rich by excluding millions more?
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@CoolApe
First off, how can anyone support democracy (rule by the people), and yet be against a large part of the people being allowed to vote? Secondly, I don't see any reason why the poor and welfare recipients are contributing little to society. In reality, most are doing hard work in multiple jobs, but their efforts are rewarded with low pay and next to no job security or benefits. To put it bluntly, hardworking people earn little not because they aren't contributing, but because their wages are determined by greedy capitalists. These syphoon the value of the poor's effort into their own pockets -- and themselves pay even less taxes, proportionally.
I, for my part, support a vision of democracy based on who policy AFFECTS. The state should be responsible to the people affected by state policy, aka, inhabitants.
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@zedvictor4
Oppression and domination is emotive human terminology, for sorting out the pecking order.
Murder is an emotive human terminology too, yet we humans shouldn't murder each other. I am not commiting a "human" fallacy by stating that humans have moral imperatives that we place upon ourselves, or that society itself ought to follow the ethical principles it enforces on its members. Oppression and domination, which you called "natural hierarchy", is unethical. That is to say, anyone with regard for morality (like a homo sapiens) should be against these injustices.
We are all born to be slaves to something.
I believe no human should be a SLAVE OWNER, people should not be coerced into working for a private man's interest.
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@zedvictor4
You're commiting the nature fallacy. Just because oppression and domination is natural doesn't make it "essential" to society. We quit formal slavery centuries ago and haven't suffered because of it. Again, success is more a matter of privilege and opportunity than personal qualities (which are themselves influenced by privilege and opportunity). Moreover, its often quite random and chaotic. There is no way to tell if the ones who came out on top of the economy are the most naturally talented and hard working. Even if that was the case, don't you think its unethical to allow natural law free reign when its blatantly obivous that the law of the jungle is constantly being rewritten to suit the interests of the contemporary successfull, at the expense of everyone else?
People are so different in ability and wealth precisely because of inequality that perpetuates failures and successes from generation to generation, undermining equality.
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@Greyparrot
Society desperately needs those people, but they do not need people that accumulate wealth without producing anything.
Firstly, you have to be against landlords then. People should own their own homes and not need to spend their money paying down another person's debt.
Secondly, your argument is fundamentally flawed:
- We need INNOVATION.
- Rich people are capable of innovation.
- Therefore, we need a class of super-rich people who innovate.
Do you see the problem? From where does the notion come from, that rich people like Bezos and Gates are worth their fortunes. Are they doing the work pumping out new products every year, are they designing and constructing billions of dollars worth of commodities. Or perhaps they are in actuallylity simply benefiting from hundreds and thousands of underpaid workers and massive brands, companies and stocks. If Bezos went on vacation for a year, would Amazon be put on halt? Is a wealthy class of owners really necesary for the innovation, or should we do justice to the actual heroes, the working class, who barely get compensated by their supposed "superiors". Even if you support entrepeneurial work, know that entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money.
We should not be supporting inequality by pointing at the business successes of the privileged few. Equality would serve justice to the real drivers of innovation: people.
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@zedvictor4
"The rich" are rich for a reason and an essential part of a healthy and productive social system.
Extremely rich people EXIST within most healthy and productive systems, but they are not in any way necesary or even beneficial to such a society. Go to the middle ages or ancient rome and you will find plenty of RICH people who are keeping the masses down using their wealth and influence. The rich have been there "for a reason" in almost every society ever, so there is NO CORRELATION there being between rich people and a healthy productive society.
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@CoolApe
Supplanting capitalism with socialism because of greed is the most ridiculous idea I've heard.
That is not my argument. Capitalism harms the vast majority of people and society at large. The motivation individuals have is irrelevant.
If your mixed-socialist utopia pays for extra medical care, agriculture and education, its because it was not fundamentally profitable and productive for the societies
Thats the point. Nobody can get rich by providing free healthcare and education, and so under capitalism nobody will do it. Socialism puts the needs and wants of the people above the profit motive. A more productive society is only a byproduct of a happier healthier one. A central tenant of socialism is improving people's material conditions.
Is it ethical or wise that the individual's sovereignty is supplanted with the states'
Are you an anarchist? If not, this argument is incompatible with your existing beliefs. You see, society and the state in general is by definition suppressing the sovereignty of individuals. If you cannot murder people then you have been restricted and your freedom violated -- but society is all the better for it. Similarly, if socialism is better for society, then society ought to adopt it. But the notion that socialism is against freedom is a myth. You still have the right to choose your career, get an education, create art and do whatever you please as long as society isn't harmed. Literally only the rich loose their freedom, by which I mean the freedom to dominate society and the economy with money not earned through labour. For everyone else, socialism means more economic autonomy, less worries, higher standard of living and more free time. Especially the poor, ethnic minorities and women benefit from socialism.
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@SirAnonymous
In the most extreme cases of socialism, there are far fewer restrictions on how the rich can use their economic power than there are under capitalism
Under "extreme socialism" the means of production are not owned by private individuals. That means that rich people cannot use their economic power to buy factories and farms and extract profit from the workers. This is a very great restriction that doesn't exist under capitalistic societies. Even if you were super-rich in a socialist country, because of a monetary fortune, you could not take controll of the means of production.
because pretty much the only rich people in extreme socialist countries are the ones in the government.
Inequality is actively being reduced in a socialist country, as opposed to a capitalist one where the system is set up to increase it. That means that "economic power" of relatively rich individuals is diminished under socialism, and all it gives you is the ability to buy yourself a higher living standard. Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that having a higher living standard (due to an important job) is more than a sign of inequality, but actually an example of "unrestricted economic power". That is not true, because socialism inherently restricts the exercise of economic power as discussed earlier.
Every system favors those with economic means disproportionately.
Of course being well-off is always an advantage. My point was that "economic freedom" is just a measure of how easily the rich can pull of economic maneuvers. Economic freedom doesn't help the working class who don't have a sufficiently large economy to take advantage of said freedom. Entire economies can collapse when "economic freedom" allows foreign companies to take controll of a struggling national economy. The ability to dodge taxes, regulations and tarrifs through loopholes and trickery is not something we should desire for the economy, no matter your position on socialism.
Even if it's overrated, the ability to work to improve one's economic status exists under capitalism. That isn't the case in places like the USSR.
The USSR rewarded workers based on their productivity, that is, the quantity of results they produced. It rewarded higher education (which was free, btw) with higher wages and more opportunities. There was still the competition for important leadership positions and administrative jobs. Capitalist countries allow you to earn more money by owning the means of production --- that is, the ability to improve one's finances depend more on wealth and sheer luck than actual work. Millions of workers work hard every day and get shit wages because capitalist roles are rewarded far more than actual usefull labour.
Economic inequity is not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't affect you or I in the slightest if Elon Musk has $1 billion or $100 billion or $100 quadrillion.
Yes it does. First off, rich people receive more from society than they as an individual contribute. It would be impossible to give everyone on earth a nice mansion and a private jet -- the production of goods is limited. Each person can only receive so much before his living standard is impossible on a global scale. In other words, the rich syphoon wealth from society. Workers work very hard to produce goods and services, and yet the rich get to enjoy everything the most. Secondly, inequality affects us in real tangible ways. Scientificamerican: how economic inequality inflicts real biological harm. Moreover, inequality-hurts-economic-growth. This all glosses over the biggest problem, namely that under capitalism, added value from labour is syphoned into a few pockets, rather than being distributed fairly or used to benefit society as a whole.
Nope. Russia did not start from scratch.
Compared to the other nations of Europe, absolutely. They had barely any industry, were mostly agrarian, the nation was in shambles after a world war, multiple revolutions, invasions by imperial powers and rampant national instability. In WWI, the russian ammunitions ran out after 6 months. In WWII, they had the industry to beat a superpower in Germany backed by most of Europe. Mind you, Germany had always been the superior industrial power compared to russia throughout its entire history, so the USSR overtaking it after two planned economic leaps is indeed faster than normal industrialisation. Why would you deny this?
The reason there was blood in Russia was because the communist government was a brutal, bloodthirsty, inhuman, murderous tyranny.
Yep. The communists were simply evil, that explains everything. We can absolutely ignore world wars, civil wars, invasions, famines, coups, uprisings, tsarists, difficult geography, foreign meddleling, lack of infrastructure and central controll or an absolutely desperate situation for the nation from the get go. I do not buy this argument. You could just as easily blame capitalism for Hitlers attrocities. Even if you are absolute correct, it does not invalidate my argument. The changes the communists wanted could have been implemented over a longer timeframe. Economic policy could have been focused on experimentation and by using incentives rather than force. Comparing the numerous catastrophes that occured withing a newly formed, unstable, former monarchy with the intentional genocide commited by Hitler and his followers is absurd. There is a difference between mistakes and crimes.
Note that alot of your criticism of the USSR is something I fully agree with and always have. In hindsight, much of what they did can be called mistakes or crimes.
I am saying that capitalism is better for economic development.
Disputed.
Hong Kong's development is far more impressive because the common man actually got to experience it, and they did it without stomping on the freedoms of their people.
Hong Kong wasn't a geographically large and diverse nation with numerous internal problems and it didn't suffer from invasions, transportation issues, governing difficulties and international isolation. It was the prime spot for investment for those wanting a foothold into China, it was literally a special zone. The difference between building itself and being built by the west is crucial in our analysis of economic system.
You are ignoring the fact that India had a legally enforced caste system for years. Even now that it is illegal, the caste system endures in their culture.
Isn't your argument that inequity is harmless? Perhaps you only defend hierarchy when it is economic and not cultural. Regardless, India is an example of capitalism failing to bring economic development to the people. They also have a large military to defend themselves, are plagued by corruption and undemocratic traditions. But perhaps this is dishonest. Let us instead compare the USSR with the other nations of Africa and Asia, the middle east and oceania. Has capitalism really benefited the people? I don't think so.
Afterthought
Its almost as most of your critique of the USSR can be applied just as easily to most capitalist countries. The USA fails to raise real wages every year despite an ever groing budget and GDP. In the middle of a pandemic, the rich gets richer while the poor get evicted and lose their jobs. Protests are put down with rubber bullets by organized police with armored vehicles. The CIA spies on its citizens via private enterprizes like social media. Almost every politician is either rich or lobbied by the rich. As a result, the wealth is put into tax breaks for the rich rather than healthcare and free education. Death threaths against journalists and others is rampant, as is terrorism. The two political parties are so close of the political spectrum and the canditates equally terrible, that real democracy is unfeasible. The will of the people mean almost nothing. Four businesses own all the major media channels. Incarceration rates are the highest in the world.
The USSR provided free healthcare and education, guaranteed work and housing and regulated prices to allow everyone to get the food they needed. Speaking of food, according to the CIA, people in the USSR had an equal, if not superior, diet compared to people in the USA. The USSR had many problems, and commited not few crimes, but don't tell me that people at large suffered under soviet socialism. After a rough start, it was an upward curve untill it was dissolved.
And no, the nation didn't dissolve because of press freedom. It was dissolved by the political elite of the administrative regions.
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@CoolApe
Isn't there a price to paid and sacrifice in capitalism for economic growth and a better future? People complain about the inequalities in Capitalism, however, the poor are better off every decade
The price to be paid for a better future is more readilly paid under socialism. There is no better way to ensure a better future for everyone than to spend money on "unprofitable" public projects. Healthy, nurished, educated and mobile people are more productive and more innovative. A society in which the good of the people is jeopardized in the name of profit and freedom is not desireable. Why charge money for medicine when that will discourage people who can't afford it? Why allow an economic elite to syphoon money needed to cure cancer and solve climate change into their own giant pockets?
The faults of the system are not with capitalism.
The good of society is expensive, and capitalism is not willing to pay for it. Individuals have moral responsibilities, but the systemic problem lies with capitalism.
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@SirAnonymous
Economic development can occur under socialism, but it is much slower and much bloodier, and very little of it reaches the common man.
This argument does not make much sense. Economic development under socialism is as fast as changes can occur. The very reason there was blood in Russia is that large changes were made too rappidly and the plans too ambitious. The speed was caused by the historic necesity of these rappid changes. You do not need to trust Stalin about the existential crisis his nation had to prepare for, because history proved him right. They did not even manage to complete three 5-year-plans before they were invaded by the Nazi's. You cannot simply point to socialism at its most desperate and chaotic point and assert that is how socialism always works.
The Russians were ahead at the beginning of the space race, this was, counterintuitively, because of their technological inferiority
The socialist state put alot of resources into non-military uses for military technology. For example, they used rockets to fly to space, and invented the nuclear reactor after they had already aquired the atomic bomb. The US only caught up to the USSR because they had more resources at their disposal and because they adopted a planned economy in the space sector --- NASA was funded by the state and was not owned by private enterprises, thus it is not capitalist.
However, you are right that the soviets never surpassed the USA in terms of resources and tech, its just that they were superior at prioritising and allocation.
It's true that many capitalist countries did have a head start. However, Hong Kong did not, yet it caught up in decades.
The USSR went from the least developed country in Europe to the most developed country in Europe and second in the world in just a few decades. It did so without relying on foreign investment and while supporting a huge military necesary for national defence. I do not want to diss on Hong Kong but their economic development is far less impressive, considering their smaller size, alignment with the west and mainland China, lack of crises and without huge geographical and ethnic difficulties. A far better comparison to China would be India, which is a country of similar scale that was never socialist. If capitalism was superior, surely democratic India would put both China and the USSR to shame.
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@SirAnonymous
Russia industrialized slowly.
No. The communist party, despite its inexperience and numerous problems, rappidly built the country up from scratch. Otherwise they would have lost WWII.
At the turn of the century Imperial Russia was lagging behind its neighbors to the west in practically all aspects of economic development. Weakened by World War I and the civil war that followed, Russia was in ruins in 1918.Electric energy supply was ensured through the construction of dozens of hydroelectric and fuel-operated power stations; one of them, a Dnieper plant, was canonized as a symbol of Soviet industrialization. Railroads and waterways were modernized and built to ensure uninterrupted flow of resources. Automobile and aviation industries were built from scratch. Whole plants were purchased in the West, mostly from the United States, and put in operation in the Soviet Union. Stalingrad Tractor Plant and Gorki Automotive Plant began production in the early 1930s. New weapon systems were developed and put into production at the expense of consumer goods. On the eve of World War II the Red Army had more than twenty-three thousand tanks—six times more than Fascist Germany. Similar ratios applied for artillery, aircraft, navy vessels, and small arms. The relocation of industry during the war to the east ranks among the most difficult organizational and human achievements of the Soviet Union during World War II.The industrial foundation laid between 1929 and 1940 proved sufficient for victory over Fascist Germany in World War II. [encyclopedia.com/industrialization-soviet]
Yes, the 5-year-plans were far from perfect, and their executions largely suffered from numerous problems while creating many new ones. However, they worked.
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@SirAnonymous
Societies with more economic freedom tend to be far better for their least influential members than those with less economic freedom.
Not all freedom is good or liberating. Freedom and unfreedom always comes in pairs.
- One can have freedom from slavery OR freedom to own slaves.
- One can have freedom from crime OR freedom from police.
- One can have freedom from taxes OR freedom to enjoy a functional state.
As you can see, freedom isn't simply a question of quantity, but of QUALITY. The freedom to run around naked in a cities is not a valuable freedom, and neither is the freedom to become a slave. These supposed "freedoms" do more harm than good to a society. We should pursue the types of freedom that are of best quality, rather than simply allowing people to do whatever they please. Even democracy, which is alledgedly a national liberty of highest importance, is actually restricting the individuals of said society in crucial ways. You can't become a monarch, you can't rule by force, you can't silence your opposition -- this is a huge lack of freedom. But democracy is worth restricting people's freedom for, one would say. That is most probably true, and the same goes for many other things.
Back to your argument:
Societies with more economic freedom tend to be far better for their least influential members than those with less economic freedom.
I want you to elaborate on that statement, because "economic freedom" isn't necesarily a good thing. Are you saying that the poorest and most unfortunate benefit from living in a country with few restrictions on how the rich can exercise their economic power? That doesn't sound like a sound argument to me. Economic freedom necesarily favors those with economic means disproportionately, as compared to those with little ability to exercise their alledged liberty. The freedom to "pull oneself by the bootstraps" and escape poverty as an individual in a capitalist system is extremely overrated. By the time the diciplined poor reaches a normal standard of living, assuming he does, the entrepeneurial guy with a rich family already holds a monopoly on his economic sector. However, the data shows us that inequality and inequity are a natural result of growth under capitalism.
In other words, the least influential members of society become even weaker and less dignified under the banner of "economic freedom".
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@Greyparrot
Nobles and monarch were also individuals you know. What's different under capitalism is that you don't have slaves or serfs but employees. I would argue that capitalism is better than literal middle age economics.
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