nah it evolved over a long time. the final human sacrifice was codified as Christ so no one else would need to make that 'physical' sacrifice

I'm not religious myself, but from what I've seen when we get rid of certain value system another one replaces it. That new value system doesn't necessarily value human life or liberty

Sam Harris has his own Value system he wants to impliment and lets assume its a great system.
He wants to tear down all religion (much like certain religions do to other faiths) regardless of its intrinsic value to society

Baby and bathwater spring to mind

@grant I think you are spot on there

My problem is the tearing down. Get people to join your value system and flourish. it will succeed in the market place of ideas if its good

This is why the Individual is the only minority that matters

Yaron brook has the same problem with religion. (I was just watching a video of him talk with Douglas Murray)

@grant in an ideal world sure however humanity isnt inherently good.

well, thats the great left/right divide. the left tends to act as if mankind is inherently good and the right acts as if the natural man is an enemy of god (yes, I just Jesus smuggled 😛 )

I like Yaron but I think he has to much faith (and I really mean faith) in capitolism and people.

Murray is my other gay crush, after Ryan Reynolds ofc

If the majority of atheists were following the value system of those guys like Sam Harris and Yaron Brooke, I might be more open to talking against religion. As I see it most atheist seem to transfer to worshipping the state. So I want to stay where we are until the next branch we grab on to actually looks steady.

it actually bothers me more that people with actual good intentions are ruining the world

it doesnt matter how good your intentions are if your ideas are shit

@grant again you are spot on there mate
@NativeInterface it breaks my heart that so much bad is done with good intentions

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis

❤

@grant have you read the Screwtape letters by Lewis?

No, I have to admit I got that quote from playing Tropico.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Screwtape-Letters-C-S-LEWIS-ebook/dp/B079XX8352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538334226&sr=8-1&keywords=the+screwtape+letters

hahaha ace!

my mum introduced me to it and its exceptional

basically one of Satans devils writing to his nephew, an up and coming tempter

` it breaks my heart that so much bad is done with good intentions`
so much bad is disguised to sound to be "with good intentions"

@Jasse you sir are also completly correct and I meant that stuff too

Hitler convinced the Germans his plans were 'good'

it's disguised to trick people into supporting it, which means there are true believers with good intentions

jews convinced people his intentions were bad.

That's why that C.S. Lewis quote is so good. People keep saying all the communist governements were corrupt. I think its the opposite, and the more they believed it the more they could justify killing people. After all Communism is sort of Utilitarian , and they did away with any religion that might tell them the individual is worth something and killing is wrong.

hitler did nothing wrong.
*exept lose war*

lol communism is litterally jewsih and killed tens of milions.

Communism didnt do away with religion, it replaced the church with the state as the new 'God'

@NativeInterface they are known as useful idiots

hitler didnt do much wrong according to regular statist standards
double nuking japan and agent orange and forced sterilizations and inhumane medical experiments and depleted uranium is just normal things that a lot of statists defend tirelessly to this day

@Jes Well that just goes back to your point about people having a hole in them that religion tends to fill. I think we are seeing today that even in cases where communism isn't cramed into that hole people grab it and put it in there anyway.

@grant its easy to justify murdering people when you only care about the whole not the component people of the state

@NativeInterface statistically speaking the double nuke was the option leading to the least loss of life. And it wasn't America's job to ensure their enemies lived, only that they (and their allies) survived. a governments job is to protect it's people

@Jes Yeah, I think that shows also that Judea-Christian value play a part in making sure we don't do that and that its not in our nature.

yeah see what i mean

heck i had an argument with a close friend about if torture is bad or not