As indicated yesterday, it’s fairly obvious where the coverage is going with this – the police should have strung them up because they looked a bit shifty, a witch-hunt will start for a police officer, social worker or some other member of the PC Brigade to blame, and it’s further evicence of McBroon’s Broken Britain.
Shame on the police! Everyone knows they should have got into their time machine and teleported themselves a few days into the future so they could look at this copy of the Mail. Then the feral youths wouldn’t have been released. Simple!
To be fair, the kids that have been charged appear to have a history of being, well, completely fucking nuts, and not a lot has been done about it up until now…the two of them are quite clearly ‘disturbed’ children.
I am, however, anticipating the witch-hunt and subsequently all the blame being placed on the social workers who put the two in care; the ITV news already had a bit of their report focus on the social services for that area of Yorkshire being one of the worst in the country etc etc etc.
I know it’s not on today’s front page but is the current attacks of the UK Police Force in general by the DM disgraceful? I’ve lived in Europe and the US and in all honesty the presence of the Police in last week’s London protests (I live in London) was really reassuring compared to Police officers abroad. Gotta say also that the new section with articles on specific stories is excellent – I love reading the debates on here, which are intelligent and much more thought provoking than the toss on the DM website! Keep up the good work!
I would agree with you if it were not for the recent disturbing turn of events.
Railroad:
Broken Britain is an irritating turn of phrase to be sure, but you can’t say there isn’t something wrong with society in general when kids so young do such dispicable acts,
What unites the ‘Daily Mail’ and the ‘Guardian’ is their belief that terrible crimes like this are the consequence of social aand economic causes, which they interpret in very different ways. In reality though such foul deeds are ultimately rooted in spiritual evil, which can manifest itself in any society. To pretend that you can entirely eradicate such monstrous deeds by political and social programmes is very naive. I believe that there is a metaphysical domain of evil, independent of human consciousness, which continually seeks to reach into this world. And if you want to call this ‘Satan’ or ‘the demonic realm’, then that’s fair enough by me. I suspect that some of you will mock such thinking. So you do then believe that you fully understand the nature of evil? May I suggest that no human being has ever attained such understanding? That includes you, me and all the people who write editorials for the ‘Mail’ or the ‘Guardian’.
Ah, that’s alright then – demonic forces. Were they the same ones that rode a tank, held a generals rank when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank? Sweet, I have a Charm of Warding that gives me a +10 roll against that sort of thing.
@Keef…scientists do not always fully understand some of the things they deal with and philosophers believe in things that cannot necessarily be proven empirically.
@J Swindle…I regard Nazism as a form of militant paganism. Many of the leading Nazis, Himmler for example, were deeply into the occult. And I don’t believe that charms defeat evil. Belief in God and an attempt to be righteous, as you understand it, are I think the only ways of holding the kingdom of evil at bay.
“I suspect that some of you will mock such thinking. So you do then believe that you fully understand the nature of evil?”
Perhaps not, but I also don’t make massive assumptions about magical demon realms based on absolutely no evidence. And I’ve read the entire Discworld series. Presumably you are now going to assert that since none of us can disprove your fantastical assertion, we have no right to criticise it. Have you heard of Russell’s teapot, daveyp?
Hitler wasn’t a pagan god, he was a very naughty boy and the Aryan Race, as in the one the Nazis (some) obsessed about and not the historic one, was an invented idea – which is fascinating in itself. The Treaty of Versailles and the New Testament did more to empower Hitler than made-up folklore for Loki’s sake. And as for ‘the nature of evil?’ Evil is just a word we ascribe to certain actions between humans. Bad shit happens in the animal kingdom and we call that ‘nature’. It’s red in teeth and claw, apparently. Thing is, I love my Grant Morrison, so I dig that you’re into this stuff – more power to you in that regard – but saying that kids can be utter bastards because of unknowable supernatural forces beyond our comprehension is a bit insulting. Kids can just be bastards. They are kids. Do you still pull the legs of spiders? But no, don’t look to their parents or their surroundings or societal changes… look at Baphomet. It’s a cop out, but it’s great fiction. The Daily Mail is insane, but your suggestion is just silly.
DaveyP: “@Keef…scientists do not always fully understand some of the things they deal with and philosophers believe in things that cannot necessarily be proven empirically.”
That is a non-answer. My question was, why do you believe it? I am not being flippant; I am genuinely interested as to why you claim to believe something for which you offer no proof, and which you admit you do not understand in any case. With respect, that seems a quite flimsy basis for a belief.
Scientists do not replace their lack of knowledge by making stuff up and philosophers are rarely called to prove their insights in test conditions.
Also, I’ve decided to explain my previous mention of Russell’s teapot with a quote from Bertie Russell himself:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
We had the early intervention of the Police and what happened?
It prevented nothing.
Instead of putting the children’s behaviour down to some sort of evil hokey-cokey it seems to me to be a far more valuable exercise to try to work out how come they (unlike most children their age) behaved this way.
Most bahaviour is learned so where did this come from?
I do not believe it came from some sort of detached ‘evil realm’.
That is IMHO just an excuse so the rest of us dfo not have to question the impact of our own values or behaviour or the wider values and behaviour we tolerate.
My own belief is that the Anglo-US culture is far too violent and often protrays ‘adding more violence’ as an acceptable or preferable solution to various social problems or simply funny.
(see the likes of the bulk of every US movie or TV show produced in the last 30yrs or the ‘kill em all and let God sort it out’ stupidity)
I do not doubt that sort of cultural corruption when mixed with widespread economic pressures must ultimately have effects such as we see in our inner cities and big towns.
I’d also just add that for all that what we are seeing are still largely isolated incidents and the UK remains one of the worlds safer countries to live in.
@Anti-gherkin…no, I haven’t heard of (presumably Bertrand) Russell’s teapot. And when have I ever suggested that nobody criticise me? Would I visit this site if I didn’t like criticism?!
@Keef…such beliefs are a significant part of much religion. True, they can’t be proven, but what CAN be proven, by recent history, is that atheism always lead to misery and massacre, eg Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Pol Pot and the Sungs, dad and son. Atheism cuts you off from the ultimate source of truth and goodness. It is one of the great paradoxes of human history that the Evil One works most assiduously through those who do not believe in him.
@Mail Man…forgive me but did not these murders take place in a rural locality? I’m not sure where the kids actually come from. And yes, the foundations of wickedness are very complex. But I believe that attempts to eradicate evil by secularism alone will not only fail but will actually generate more evil.
DaveyP, as you’re still unwilling to answer my question and have, again, gone off at a tangent*, I’m guessing you do not, in fact, have an answer?
* a wholly nonsensical one, at that; full of irrelevant strawmen, each of which says far more about unreason than it does about atheism, which, for reasons unfathomable, you have chosen to bring up.
@daveyp: Atheism ‘always leads to misery and massacre?’ So the terrible troubles in the middle east, including genocide, the uprooting of entire cultures, near-constant war and endless squabbles, violence and death have nothing to do with religion? Families who allow religious leaders to beat their children to ‘rid their body of evil spirits’? The spread of AIDS across Africa thanks to the Pope’s cretinous beliefs?
Please tell me how it is that an increasingly secular Western world is by far and away the most stable region in the entire world, infinitely more so than the middle east, where religion is not separated from the state? Afghanistan, for example, where recent legislation attempts to effectively legalise rape by making it mandatory for men to have sex with their wives once every four days and for it to be illegal for women to refuse their husbands sex? Why it is that we rampaged callously across entire cultures and left them in tatters during our empire days despite British culture being decidedly more ‘Christian’ than today? That we had missionaries who attempted to destroy entire tribal cultures in the name of Christianity as a duty to their ‘loving’ Lord? Why it is that deeply Christian people such as the Westboro Baptist Church engage in disgusting protests against soldiers who have spent months risking their lives abroad? Why it is that you see so few violent protests in the name of atheism?
Also found an interesting POV on another forum:
“Stalin and Pol Pot are different. Yes, you can justifiably call them atheists, however blaming atheism for their violent tendancies is just plain silly. Stalin and Pol Pot were men who learned a great deal from religion. They learned that religion or faith if you will, is an excellent tool for controlling populations. Therefore both men actually supplanted themselves with god. Thousands and thousands of people in Stalins gulags wrote letters to “Uncle Joe” begging (praying) for his help because they couldn’t believe their god would allow them to be in the gulag if he knew their situation. Stalin knew and used his purges to weed out the unbelievers.”
Comes right back to belief and religion. Not that religion is inherently bad, but the idea that it is pure and atheism is ultimately corrupt is insulting.
Also also, please don’t think that I’m ultimately against religion. I’m really not. It was just a counterpoint, one that I would happily argue the other way if the situation called for it.
Yes in this particular instance you’re right it was a more rural local
(which in itself gives rise to all sorts of possible deprived possibilities).
I don’t see that that alters the idea of our society being brutalised and made more violent by the nasty ‘culture’ we have tolerated and that these instances of violent & brutal behaviour are a product largely of that.
I have no expectation that “secularism alone” (whatever that might mean, will eradicate evil.
I do not believe in ‘evil’ per se.
We are all capable of doing evil, wittingly and unwittingly.
I do not believe that those acts require any intervention from ‘Satan’, ‘Demons’ or an ‘evil’ supernatural anymore than our capacity to behave with astonishing generousity, kindness and considerate decently requires any intervention from ‘God’, Angels or a ‘good’ supernatural.
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
daveyp, you imply that, since you feel we don’t have a better explanation as to the nature of evil than your baseless magic demon theory, we therefore have no basis on which to call said theory nonsensical (which it is). Much like Russell’s teapot.
The Jews promote and disseminate material which undermines and is detrimental to Western societies. In this case, the Jews own corporations which produce violent video games and degenerate Hip-Hop music. Such material has clearly desensitized these boys to violence, which has, in turn, contributed to these boys using violence whilst, in so doing, disregarding its consequences.
Oh deary dear – the Jews. And it’s Easter too, when they got blamed for the impossible – deicide. And violent games too? The Hipperty-Hop music? Ha! I’d just like to add that US prisons are full of Christians and other such religious types and according to this old book I read God used to love having women and children slaughtered. Traditional values, indeed. Next..
Basically the arguments on here are “evil cannot be proven scientifically, therefore evil does not exist,” which I think demonstrates the inadequacy of materialist morality. If evil is ultimately just a neurotransmitter firing in our brain, then there is no basis for claiming anything is good or bad. You might as well say there is no such thing as love, or literature because the cannot be “proven” scientifically. While I agree with DaveP about evil in general I do not think these children were “possessed” most likely they were massively abused and disturbed in their early development.
(and before anyone claims that I said athiests were “evil” no i said nothing of the sort. Athiests can be just as moral as anyone else, however I believe the materialist (as you must be as an athiest) explanation of morality is no morality at all.)
Litrature exists, but whether it is bad or good is up to you to decide. You can minitor the physological affects of being in love, also. But thanks for suggesting I can’t have an understanding of morality. Very kind.
One thing to bear in mind, when saying that atheists killed more people than religious people ever did, is that Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler et al had all sorts of terrible weapons at their disposal that religious troublemakers, in the past at least, never had access to.
Is anybody still here? Probably not but having just returned from a rural computer-free locale I feel compelled to make a further contribution, which I suspect will go unread, but anyway. I cannot possibly ‘prove’ my religious beliefs to the rigid empirical standards demanded by some of you, but they are beliefs that seem to me to fit with at least some of the reality I see around me. One person who spent many years researching the occult, the novelist Dennis Wheatley, concluded by expressing his conviction that those who chose to dabble in such matters were placing themselves in the gravest possible danger. Are you all so sure he was wrong?
@MatthewS….thanks for the support mate, I certainly felt in need ot it!
@James M. …an interesting point, which I note and will indeed bear in mind.
And finally, so you want me to give you an argument for the existence of God? I’ve only got one that has really made an impact upon me. Any atheists reading this will doubtless dismiss it out of hand and ‘Obama the new Mugabe?’ will doubtless foam with rage if he reads it but here goes…Frederick the Second, the martial Prussian monarch and a pronounced atheist, once asked his personal physician, a religious man, to give him one good argument for the existence of God. To which his physician replied: ‘The proof that God exists is that the Jews exist.’ The survival of the Jews does indeed strike me as a good argument for the existence of God, although I don’t for one moment claim that it is proof of the kind that some of you demand. From what I understand Frederick was not converted to religion but did concede the force of the argument.
MatthewS
April 12th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
“Basically the arguments on here are “evil cannot be proven scientifically, therefore evil does not exist,” which I think demonstrates the inadequacy of materialist morality.
If evil is ultimately just a neurotransmitter firing in our brain, then there is no basis for claiming anything is good or bad.”
Er, yes there is.
Humanist morality just does not require the supernatural.
That does not mean good and bad lose the basis of defining them.
Sorry but the ‘without a God you’re all just brutes & savages’ line has always struck me as the weakest argument anyone can make in support of religion.
daveyp
“Dennis Wheatley, concluded by expressing his conviction that those who chose to dabble in such matters were placing themselves in the gravest possible danger. ”
I expect that in the same way as drugs attract the already insecure (and so can show a corresponding incidence of mental problems, often debated as ‘causal’ but not necessarily) I expect that certain extremes of religious belief attract the unstable and are ‘dangerous’ for no other reason than that.
It is interesting that many of the world’s religions do not have a ‘Devil’ in the traditional Christian sense – even that part of the Jewish faith is not at all alike to the Christian version, which is strange given their common roots.
I hope they seasoned them first and drizzled them with olive oil! Pre-heating the grill first is also a good idea.
Oh aye, them cons turned out nice again. Ketchup?
Shurley WHOSE back. Sort it out.
If grilling is not torture I do not know what is. What happened to the traditional quiz?
At least they weren’t roasted.
As indicated yesterday, it’s fairly obvious where the coverage is going with this – the police should have strung them up because they looked a bit shifty, a witch-hunt will start for a police officer, social worker or some other member of the PC Brigade to blame, and it’s further evicence of McBroon’s Broken Britain.
Yawn.
Who needs a judicial process for minors when we’ve got the DM to tell us all the facts?
Save money on a court appearence, lynch ‘em now!
Even lynching is an extremely dangerous practise now, what with the PC Brigade on your back all the time.
It’s bloody ‘elf ans safety gone mad.
Nice to see masturbation corner back with a blast.
They’ve been charged now, let’s hope they are convicted and executed. Oh, and it would be nice if the two victims made a full recovery.
Whoever it is I’m guessing they are dead.
Shame on the police! Everyone knows they should have got into their time machine and teleported themselves a few days into the future so they could look at this copy of the Mail. Then the feral youths wouldn’t have been released. Simple!
To be fair, the kids that have been charged appear to have a history of being, well, completely fucking nuts, and not a lot has been done about it up until now…the two of them are quite clearly ‘disturbed’ children.
I am, however, anticipating the witch-hunt and subsequently all the blame being placed on the social workers who put the two in care; the ITV news already had a bit of their report focus on the social services for that area of Yorkshire being one of the worst in the country etc etc etc.
I know it’s not on today’s front page but is the current attacks of the UK Police Force in general by the DM disgraceful? I’ve lived in Europe and the US and in all honesty the presence of the Police in last week’s London protests (I live in London) was really reassuring compared to Police officers abroad. Gotta say also that the new section with articles on specific stories is excellent – I love reading the debates on here, which are intelligent and much more thought provoking than the toss on the DM website! Keep up the good work!
Stripey:
I would agree with you if it were not for the recent disturbing turn of events.
Railroad:
Broken Britain is an irritating turn of phrase to be sure, but you can’t say there isn’t something wrong with society in general when kids so young do such dispicable acts,
That looks like a tranny in “who’s back?”.
Dame Edna Everage?
What unites the ‘Daily Mail’ and the ‘Guardian’ is their belief that terrible crimes like this are the consequence of social aand economic causes, which they interpret in very different ways. In reality though such foul deeds are ultimately rooted in spiritual evil, which can manifest itself in any society. To pretend that you can entirely eradicate such monstrous deeds by political and social programmes is very naive. I believe that there is a metaphysical domain of evil, independent of human consciousness, which continually seeks to reach into this world. And if you want to call this ‘Satan’ or ‘the demonic realm’, then that’s fair enough by me. I suspect that some of you will mock such thinking. So you do then believe that you fully understand the nature of evil? May I suggest that no human being has ever attained such understanding? That includes you, me and all the people who write editorials for the ‘Mail’ or the ‘Guardian’.
DaveyP:
So, if you don’t understand it and you have no evidence of it, why do you believe it?
Ah, that’s alright then – demonic forces. Were they the same ones that rode a tank, held a generals rank when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank? Sweet, I have a Charm of Warding that gives me a +10 roll against that sort of thing.
@Keef…scientists do not always fully understand some of the things they deal with and philosophers believe in things that cannot necessarily be proven empirically.
@J Swindle…I regard Nazism as a form of militant paganism. Many of the leading Nazis, Himmler for example, were deeply into the occult. And I don’t believe that charms defeat evil. Belief in God and an attempt to be righteous, as you understand it, are I think the only ways of holding the kingdom of evil at bay.
“I suspect that some of you will mock such thinking. So you do then believe that you fully understand the nature of evil?”
Perhaps not, but I also don’t make massive assumptions about magical demon realms based on absolutely no evidence. And I’ve read the entire Discworld series. Presumably you are now going to assert that since none of us can disprove your fantastical assertion, we have no right to criticise it. Have you heard of Russell’s teapot, daveyp?
Hitler wasn’t a pagan god, he was a very naughty boy and the Aryan Race, as in the one the Nazis (some) obsessed about and not the historic one, was an invented idea – which is fascinating in itself. The Treaty of Versailles and the New Testament did more to empower Hitler than made-up folklore for Loki’s sake. And as for ‘the nature of evil?’ Evil is just a word we ascribe to certain actions between humans. Bad shit happens in the animal kingdom and we call that ‘nature’. It’s red in teeth and claw, apparently. Thing is, I love my Grant Morrison, so I dig that you’re into this stuff – more power to you in that regard – but saying that kids can be utter bastards because of unknowable supernatural forces beyond our comprehension is a bit insulting. Kids can just be bastards. They are kids. Do you still pull the legs of spiders? But no, don’t look to their parents or their surroundings or societal changes… look at Baphomet. It’s a cop out, but it’s great fiction. The Daily Mail is insane, but your suggestion is just silly.
…They shouted out “Who killed Kennedy” when after all, it was you and me.!
Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints…
Particularly those involved in the G20 ‘riots’?
DaveyP: “@Keef…scientists do not always fully understand some of the things they deal with and philosophers believe in things that cannot necessarily be proven empirically.”
That is a non-answer. My question was, why do you believe it? I am not being flippant; I am genuinely interested as to why you claim to believe something for which you offer no proof, and which you admit you do not understand in any case. With respect, that seems a quite flimsy basis for a belief.
Scientists do not replace their lack of knowledge by making stuff up and philosophers are rarely called to prove their insights in test conditions.
Has everyone seen this?
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
Also, I’ve decided to explain my previous mention of Russell’s teapot with a quote from Bertie Russell himself:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
Well there goes another dumb DM-ite nostrum.
We had the early intervention of the Police and what happened?
It prevented nothing.
Instead of putting the children’s behaviour down to some sort of evil hokey-cokey it seems to me to be a far more valuable exercise to try to work out how come they (unlike most children their age) behaved this way.
Most bahaviour is learned so where did this come from?
I do not believe it came from some sort of detached ‘evil realm’.
That is IMHO just an excuse so the rest of us dfo not have to question the impact of our own values or behaviour or the wider values and behaviour we tolerate.
My own belief is that the Anglo-US culture is far too violent and often protrays ‘adding more violence’ as an acceptable or preferable solution to various social problems or simply funny.
(see the likes of the bulk of every US movie or TV show produced in the last 30yrs or the ‘kill em all and let God sort it out’ stupidity)
I do not doubt that sort of cultural corruption when mixed with widespread economic pressures must ultimately have effects such as we see in our inner cities and big towns.
I’d also just add that for all that what we are seeing are still largely isolated incidents and the UK remains one of the worlds safer countries to live in.
@Anti-gherkin…no, I haven’t heard of (presumably Bertrand) Russell’s teapot. And when have I ever suggested that nobody criticise me? Would I visit this site if I didn’t like criticism?!
@Keef…such beliefs are a significant part of much religion. True, they can’t be proven, but what CAN be proven, by recent history, is that atheism always lead to misery and massacre, eg Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Pol Pot and the Sungs, dad and son. Atheism cuts you off from the ultimate source of truth and goodness. It is one of the great paradoxes of human history that the Evil One works most assiduously through those who do not believe in him.
@Mail Man…forgive me but did not these murders take place in a rural locality? I’m not sure where the kids actually come from. And yes, the foundations of wickedness are very complex. But I believe that attempts to eradicate evil by secularism alone will not only fail but will actually generate more evil.
DaveyP, as you’re still unwilling to answer my question and have, again, gone off at a tangent*, I’m guessing you do not, in fact, have an answer?
* a wholly nonsensical one, at that; full of irrelevant strawmen, each of which says far more about unreason than it does about atheism, which, for reasons unfathomable, you have chosen to bring up.
@daveyp: Atheism ‘always leads to misery and massacre?’ So the terrible troubles in the middle east, including genocide, the uprooting of entire cultures, near-constant war and endless squabbles, violence and death have nothing to do with religion? Families who allow religious leaders to beat their children to ‘rid their body of evil spirits’? The spread of AIDS across Africa thanks to the Pope’s cretinous beliefs?
Please tell me how it is that an increasingly secular Western world is by far and away the most stable region in the entire world, infinitely more so than the middle east, where religion is not separated from the state? Afghanistan, for example, where recent legislation attempts to effectively legalise rape by making it mandatory for men to have sex with their wives once every four days and for it to be illegal for women to refuse their husbands sex? Why it is that we rampaged callously across entire cultures and left them in tatters during our empire days despite British culture being decidedly more ‘Christian’ than today? That we had missionaries who attempted to destroy entire tribal cultures in the name of Christianity as a duty to their ‘loving’ Lord? Why it is that deeply Christian people such as the Westboro Baptist Church engage in disgusting protests against soldiers who have spent months risking their lives abroad? Why it is that you see so few violent protests in the name of atheism?
Also found an interesting POV on another forum:
“Stalin and Pol Pot are different. Yes, you can justifiably call them atheists, however blaming atheism for their violent tendancies is just plain silly. Stalin and Pol Pot were men who learned a great deal from religion. They learned that religion or faith if you will, is an excellent tool for controlling populations. Therefore both men actually supplanted themselves with god. Thousands and thousands of people in Stalins gulags wrote letters to “Uncle Joe” begging (praying) for his help because they couldn’t believe their god would allow them to be in the gulag if he knew their situation. Stalin knew and used his purges to weed out the unbelievers.”
Comes right back to belief and religion. Not that religion is inherently bad, but the idea that it is pure and atheism is ultimately corrupt is insulting.
Disclaimer: I’ve made a good few generalisations there, so please don’t take everything I wrote absolutely literally.
Also also, please don’t think that I’m ultimately against religion. I’m really not. It was just a counterpoint, one that I would happily argue the other way if the situation called for it.
Yes in this particular instance you’re right it was a more rural local
(which in itself gives rise to all sorts of possible deprived possibilities).
I don’t see that that alters the idea of our society being brutalised and made more violent by the nasty ‘culture’ we have tolerated and that these instances of violent & brutal behaviour are a product largely of that.
I have no expectation that “secularism alone” (whatever that might mean, will eradicate evil.
I do not believe in ‘evil’ per se.
We are all capable of doing evil, wittingly and unwittingly.
I do not believe that those acts require any intervention from ‘Satan’, ‘Demons’ or an ‘evil’ supernatural anymore than our capacity to behave with astonishing generousity, kindness and considerate decently requires any intervention from ‘God’, Angels or a ‘good’ supernatural.
Russell’s teapot:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
daveyp, you imply that, since you feel we don’t have a better explanation as to the nature of evil than your baseless magic demon theory, we therefore have no basis on which to call said theory nonsensical (which it is). Much like Russell’s teapot.
The people to blame for this are the Jews.
The Jews promote and disseminate material which undermines and is detrimental to Western societies. In this case, the Jews own corporations which produce violent video games and degenerate Hip-Hop music. Such material has clearly desensitized these boys to violence, which has, in turn, contributed to these boys using violence whilst, in so doing, disregarding its consequences.
Fuck off idiot.
Oh deary dear – the Jews. And it’s Easter too, when they got blamed for the impossible – deicide. And violent games too? The Hipperty-Hop music? Ha! I’d just like to add that US prisons are full of Christians and other such religious types and according to this old book I read God used to love having women and children slaughtered. Traditional values, indeed. Next..
Were David Icke’s lizard people also involved? Jeez.
Basically the arguments on here are “evil cannot be proven scientifically, therefore evil does not exist,” which I think demonstrates the inadequacy of materialist morality. If evil is ultimately just a neurotransmitter firing in our brain, then there is no basis for claiming anything is good or bad. You might as well say there is no such thing as love, or literature because the cannot be “proven” scientifically. While I agree with DaveP about evil in general I do not think these children were “possessed” most likely they were massively abused and disturbed in their early development.
(and before anyone claims that I said athiests were “evil” no i said nothing of the sort. Athiests can be just as moral as anyone else, however I believe the materialist (as you must be as an athiest) explanation of morality is no morality at all.)
Litrature exists, but whether it is bad or good is up to you to decide. You can minitor the physological affects of being in love, also. But thanks for suggesting I can’t have an understanding of morality. Very kind.
One thing to bear in mind, when saying that atheists killed more people than religious people ever did, is that Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler et al had all sorts of terrible weapons at their disposal that religious troublemakers, in the past at least, never had access to.
Is anybody still here? Probably not but having just returned from a rural computer-free locale I feel compelled to make a further contribution, which I suspect will go unread, but anyway. I cannot possibly ‘prove’ my religious beliefs to the rigid empirical standards demanded by some of you, but they are beliefs that seem to me to fit with at least some of the reality I see around me. One person who spent many years researching the occult, the novelist Dennis Wheatley, concluded by expressing his conviction that those who chose to dabble in such matters were placing themselves in the gravest possible danger. Are you all so sure he was wrong?
@MatthewS….thanks for the support mate, I certainly felt in need ot it!
@James M. …an interesting point, which I note and will indeed bear in mind.
And finally, so you want me to give you an argument for the existence of God? I’ve only got one that has really made an impact upon me. Any atheists reading this will doubtless dismiss it out of hand and ‘Obama the new Mugabe?’ will doubtless foam with rage if he reads it but here goes…Frederick the Second, the martial Prussian monarch and a pronounced atheist, once asked his personal physician, a religious man, to give him one good argument for the existence of God. To which his physician replied: ‘The proof that God exists is that the Jews exist.’ The survival of the Jews does indeed strike me as a good argument for the existence of God, although I don’t for one moment claim that it is proof of the kind that some of you demand. From what I understand Frederick was not converted to religion but did concede the force of the argument.
MatthewS
April 12th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
“Basically the arguments on here are “evil cannot be proven scientifically, therefore evil does not exist,” which I think demonstrates the inadequacy of materialist morality.
If evil is ultimately just a neurotransmitter firing in our brain, then there is no basis for claiming anything is good or bad.”
Er, yes there is.
Humanist morality just does not require the supernatural.
That does not mean good and bad lose the basis of defining them.
Sorry but the ‘without a God you’re all just brutes & savages’ line has always struck me as the weakest argument anyone can make in support of religion.
daveyp
“Dennis Wheatley, concluded by expressing his conviction that those who chose to dabble in such matters were placing themselves in the gravest possible danger. ”
I expect that in the same way as drugs attract the already insecure (and so can show a corresponding incidence of mental problems, often debated as ‘causal’ but not necessarily) I expect that certain extremes of religious belief attract the unstable and are ‘dangerous’ for no other reason than that.
It is interesting that many of the world’s religions do not have a ‘Devil’ in the traditional Christian sense – even that part of the Jewish faith is not at all alike to the Christian version, which is strange given their common roots.