...and thanks for the badge!!

[Jonathan]

Sine, I'm sure if you're right, and God doesn't exist, and the Bible wasn't true and wasn't written, then there wouldn't be rape.

No, but it would change some of the attitudes that people impose on themselves through religion. Religion is a powerful force; if it has some bad influences many people still adopt it. It's really quite fortunate that most cherry-pick to some extent, regardless of whether they can rationalize it very well.

Even though I don't believe in free will right now

Well you done goofed now. If you don't believe in free will, then its not Word's fault he believes in the Bible/God/all this other nonsense, its fate's fault! In this case you can still try telling people to change their faith, in the notion that fate wants you to do so, and if they listen, then fate also wants them to stop believing, but you can't blame them for believing, since its not their choice (no free will).

You got logic'd! (By a Catholic no less, but don't worry, fate made me do it)

Who's to say that it isn't sine's fate to be in this position, and try to influence others? Whether it's all predetermined has nothing to do with the possibility of interactions.

It becomes somewhat interesting when you get to punishment. You still end up with roughly the same thing, but the motivation changes. You're not so much punishing for being bad people as limiting the damage to the majority. You still don't let criminals run free, but this position does encourage compassion. That, in turn, may prevent people from going astray because they were neglected. Neglected, even if they were very manageable at that point, perhaps just viewed negatively or otherwise impacted.

[syllabear]

Who's to say that it isn't sine's fate to be in this position, and try to influence others?

Thats exactly what I said.

Whether it's all predetermined has nothing to do with the possibility of interactions.

Yes it does, try and think about it from a wider perspective

[Kijutsu]

Some rapists feel guilty afterwards and commit suicide, typical rapists usually want to demonstrate a power they don't have in their normal lives, so it's our duty to find a substitute for that

Yes, will somebody please think of the poor rapists.

[Word]

If you can come up with a better idea to prevent it, please post it. I didn't generalize it. If you want to kill every single rapist you aren't any better than them.

[sinewav]

I know God prefers you to eat fish, but this topic is beginning to smell from all the red herring. Sylla would be better off trying to help Word in the impossible task of justifing his creator's horrible commandments rather than trying to argue about free will, something he obviously hasn't spent much time thinking about.

[Word]

I know God prefers you to eat fish, but this topic is beginning to smell from all the red herring. Sylla would be better off trying to help Word in the impossible task of justifing his creator's horrible commandments rather than trying to argue about free will, something he obviously hasn't spent much time thinking about.

Sylla, you're welcome to do that but I'll write mine as well (because I'm responsible for this, haha). I just do some other things at the same time so I'm only replying to these red herrings for now. Maybe I'll need a month or two to get a good text together, but I'll write one.

[syllabear]

I know God prefers you to eat fish, but this topic is beginning to smell from all the red herring. Sylla would be better off trying to help Word in the impossible task of justifing his creator's horrible commandments rather than trying to argue about free will, something he obviously hasn't spent much time thinking about.

I'll let you have that discussion with Word (as you requested earlier anyway).

But yeah, nice ad hominem argument there. And I'd rather not spend any more time thinking about things like free will and other interesting but fairly unlucrative notions.

Pre-post EDIT: Word's just beaten me to it, and I've not changed the above; it's your argument and I won't butt into that specific area.

[Kijutsu]

There's no way to "prevent" rape, you dolt.

[Word]

I'd like to see you telling that one of the people who work in that field...

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=se ... 40&bih=772

[Kijutsu]

"prevent"

You can prevent yourself from being in certain situations, but you can't prevent a rapist from raping.

I'll give you a couple of days to figure out what that means.

[sinewav]

Word, you realize God's commandment actually rewards rapists, right? It's like rape shopping: find a virgin, rape, buy her from her father, rape indefinitely.

Ok, I'm done for real now. It's not even a fair fight. You see, I used to be super christian, so I know all the tricks.

[Phytotron]

Sine, I'm sure if you're right, and God doesn't exist, and the Bible wasn't true and wasn't written, then there wouldn't be rape.

And you're criticising someone for using fallacious arguments? No one makes that claim, including the so-called "New Atheists" (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc.). None claim religion is the root of all evil. What we do point out can be summed in the Steven Weinberg quote: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

As for your thoughtless, witless comments about free will, you have it exactly backwards. Being a fully-caused agent makes one more responsible for their actions. It means that people can be caused to behave morally and ethically. And one of the main ways we cause them to act ethically is by holding them responsible and accountable. People who are capable of being warned in this fashion, who are capable of having their behavior shaped by the prospect of being held responsible, are moral agents. So we don’t need to be uncaused or have contra-causal free will to be held responsible, or to be moral agents, or to have morality. In fact, these things would be impossible if people had the supernatural power to act independently of causes, since they could just ignore the prospect of being held responsible and do whatever they darn well pleased.

Pro tip: Being a massive shit-talker in a video game doesn't make you lord of verbal smack-downs when actually called to task on something substantive.

I believe in a God who accepts everyone no matter what he has done or endured, as long as he sincerely regrets his mistakes

You do understand it's entirely possible to deliberately commit an immoral action that you know you'll regret afterwards, right? So, you, in this particular interpretation of Christianity, have given license to act immorally.

Of course, once more, says you. Let me go ahead an elaborate on that a little more. Titanoboa, your statement that Word's theology doesn't reflect that of the majority of Christians, even if it's true (have you surveyed?), has no value. Are you really about to say that the "true" interpretation of Christianity is determined by whatever the current majority believes? And Word, you have no right to dismiss or condescend to evangelical fundamentalists. Fact is, you all presume to speak for the proper understanding of Christianity, but none of you—indeed, no Christian—has any particular authority or viable objective standard by which to give that veracity. There are as many versions or Christianity as there are people who profess to be Christians.

By the way, Word, did you download that PDF? You asked for 5 examples. I think that'll supply more than enough.

it's our duty to find a substitute for [rape] (I'd like to believe that some computer games could already help a great deal...)

This is beyond stupid. Not quite as far as 2020's asinine belief that the Fortress game mode of Armagetron can bring utopia to the Sudan, but close.

There's no way to "prevent" rape ... you can't prevent a rapist from raping.

Uh, no. Rape is not some natural hazard. The sort of mentality you just professed is a perfect example of rape culture.

(You do realise, by the way, that I was speaking sarcastically and mocking you in that other thread, right? On the subject of society versus your unthinking hardcore, narcissistic individualism?)

Shakesville: Rape Culture 101
http://www.mencanstoprape.org/
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/RPE/index.html
http://www.rainn.org/

Read up. Get a clue, boys.

[Kijutsu]

Um, that's exactly what I meant. Flirting, the way you dress, deciding to go to a bar by yourself etc -- I've seen people say "avoid all that to prevent rape" and it's sickening. That's not a way to prevent anything because it isn't the cause of it. Those "men can stop rape" ads are hilarious, yeah.. I'm sure a rapist is gonna see that and change his mind. Please.


I'm aware, why exactly are you bringing that up in a different topic after I subtly ignored your mischaracterization..?

[Phytotron]

you can't prevent a rapist from raping.

... Am I the only one who just now noticed that's Liz? Is Tank Program back? Hmm, "Last visited" is blank on his profile. I thought only Tank could change user names.

[sinewav]

I'm going to venture a guess that when she says "can't prevent rape" she's meaning it more conceptually, like how we can't be rid of murder, or terrorism, or anything else like that. I agree we can make great strides in reducing it though.