Atheist Dan Barker Says Child Rape Could Be Moral

Novest

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Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
 
Novest said:
Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
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It would depend upon the circumstance. Without watching the video, I would say that it would not be moral if there were a possible way to save the 6* billion people without raping 2 million girls. Given what I know of Dan Barker, that possibility would probably have been covered. If all other non-rape options were unavailable, then yes, this would be covered under Spock's Law.
 
are the girls aware of the trade off, if so it would be hard to find 200 million girls that would not consent.
 
Novest said:


Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
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I can't imagine accepting this as "moral". In the fantastic situation proposed in the video, all morality as such would be suspended. No moral code contains provision for such arbitrary behaviour on the part of aliens, or supernatural beings. It is outside the range of circumstances taken account of by people's moral views.

But I am not speaking for atheists in general. There is no "atheist" moral standpoint, in that atheism is defined not by any moral ideology, but by the view that claims regarding the existence of gods are unsupported by evidence and therefore not to be accepted.

However, there are similar moral problems. Many people, atheists as well as religious believers, agree that, say, the nuclear attacks on Japanese cities, which killed mainly civilians, and in huge numbers, were justified because they averted the need to invade Japan to secure its defeat, and therefore saved the lives of an unknown number of American soldiers.

How many thousands of infants would you roast to death buried amid the ruins of their homes, in order potentially to save how many soldiers? That is a very real, not a fantastic scenario. But it has nothing to do with atheism, or religion. You will find believers and non-believers on all sides in such questions.

What "human" crimes would you commit to ensure, if you believe in eternal punishment, that a single person was saved from hell? Whatever they would be, they are finite, while hell is infinite. The moral question is the same as that.

We may hope there is no hell, and we may hope aliens don't invade - but the war question, it's real and current. How do you respond, and what has atheism to do with it?
 
Anything could be moral, if it prevents a sufficiently outrageous greater evil. Make it raping a billion innocent little puppies and it could still be moral if it saved a billion billion. There's nothing outrageous about the claim, so the thread title seems to be deliberately inflammatory.
 
It is a cleverly crafted question to trip up atheists, would you rather stand on a butterfly, or have everyone exterminated?

The correct answer is kill everyone so all the believers in the real God can go to heaven.
 
Novest said:


Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
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Why not ? The OT god simply felt moral to ask his "chosen" people to rape, enslave, bash little kid head, just because other folk were in the way. JC was not much better either, in the NT.
 
Self-righteous DICK debating a moron (Dan Barker)


Dan is an idiot to allow himself to fall for such an amazingly STUPID trap.

What he should have done is ask....is it alright to GENOCIDE ENTIRE NATIONS and rape 32000 girls so as to take someone's land because God ordered it? That is the God of the afterlife the PRICK who was debating Dan is referring to.

Dan is a moron for falling into the stupid and meaningless trap.

I would have answered:
If Aliens come and demand such a stupid and meaningless demand we will deal with it then.....but lets deal with YOUR GOD who HAS, and not hypothetically, commanded people to GENOCIDE other people and rape their girls for some LAND-GRAB.....and they DID so.

Lets deal with YOUR GOD who because you believe is real you are sending BILLIONS of dollars to a country that was created because some people believe that they have a GOD GIVEN RIGHT to remove people from their land and take it, and you fully support that.

So is that moral? It is a REALITY not a hypothetical stupid trap.....you believe that your god DID command people to genocide and rape....and you think it is right that they DID so...is that moral?

Is it moral that YOUR GOD is going to fill a 20 miles diameter lake, 5 feet deep with BLOOD PRESSED out of humans just because they did not believe in his son?

Is it moral that YOUR GOD has drowned babies and infants and children by the millions because some people have done something he does not like?

Let's not talk abbout what some Aliens MIGHT do....let's talk about what Christians and Jews and Moslims HAVE DONE and are STILL DOING in the name of your God and under his command and aid.​


ETA: And Craig B's argument is EXCELLENT too.... I would add that to my argument above.
 
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It’s not a moral dilemma for the person being FORCED to commit the act.
In fact the moral dilemma is on the one doing the ultimatum.
Moral action is a decision; a gun to the head is not letting you make that decision.
So I would assert that the scenario “2 million raped or 6 billion dead” (apart from being totally ridicules) is no more a moral decision that if someone holds a gun to your head and demands your money (with you knowing that you will not be able to buy your kids medicine), or if you’re bound by intruders who demand you slit your wife’s throat in order to spare the lives of the whole family.
That being said though, the atheist dude blew it.
The preacher’s (why do they all have the same accent) last statement was the most immoral assertion I heard, “I’d let 6 billion die because I believe that the after life is better”.
 
Ironic, this question coming on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist act in America.

One could ask a theist: was 9/11 moral or immoral? Theists were both flying the planes and being killed on the ground, so I expect that one could get several different answers.

Ideas about morality seem to have little correlation with either theism or atheism.
 
Novest said:


Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
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I'd like to believe that there aren't enough people who can get it up, so to speak, at the thought of raping a little girl...
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Anything could be moral, if it prevents a sufficiently outrageous greater evil. Make it raping a billion innocent little puppies and it could still be moral if it saved a billion billion. There's nothing outrageous about the claim, so the thread title seems to be deliberately inflammatory.
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You'd kill 49.999999....% of humanity to save 50.000000.....1%?
 
Let's say the Earth is becoming uninhabitable after a full-scale nuclear war. We have been able to build a space ship that can take 10,000 to Mars with the equipment they need to survive and colonize that planet.

There is no other option and if we don't send the space ship, everyone on Earth will still die within a year. However, in order to get enough thrust to make the space ship take off with such an enormous load, the blast will destroy the Earth completely, killing 10 billion people.

Is it right to kill 10 billion people to save 10 thousand? I would say that it is.
 
What contrived nonsense.

People without morals trying to come up conundrums for people with morals.
 
Of course I'd like to change the word Alien to GOD and see if that makes a diff
 
Of course. Duh!

It would be moral for me to kill my own child to save humanity. I've got some bad news for humanity though. You are **** ed. I wouldn't do it to save humanity. You can all go to hell. "The Dr. says you are going to die."

:p
 
Novest said:


Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
Click to expand...
If in order to save the human race from annilation youd have to rape a child then in that extremely illogical and unlikely situation it would be moral. Dan Barker is right. If I had to do that I'd kill myself like Dan Barker said he would.
 
Newtons Bit said:
I'd like to believe that there aren't enough people who can get it up, so to speak, at the thought of raping a little girl...
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I could get a .44 up fast enough to kill a number of those thinking about it......

and I won't need to think about that.
 
Leumas said:
Self-righteous DICK debating a moron (Dan Barker)


Dan is an idiot to allow himself to fall for such an amazingly STUPID trap.

What he should have done is ask....is it alright to GENOCIDE ENTIRE NATIONS and rape 32000 girls so as to take someone's land because God ordered it? That is the God of the afterlife the PRICK who was debating Dan is referring to.

Dan is a moron for falling into the stupid and meaningless trap.

I would have answered:
If Aliens come and demand such a stupid and meaningless demand we will deal with it then.....but lets deal with YOUR GOD who HAS, and not hypothetically, commanded people to GENOCIDE other people and rape their girls for some LAND-GRAB.....and they DID so.

Lets deal with YOUR GOD who because you believe is real you are sending BILLIONS of dollars to a country that was created because some people believe that they have a GOD GIVEN RIGHT to remove people from their land and take it, and you fully support that.

So is that moral? It is a REALITY not a hypothetical stupid trap.....you believe that your god DID command people to genocide and rape....and you think it is right that they DID so...is that moral?

Is it moral that YOUR GOD is going to fill a 20 miles diameter lake, 5 feet deep with BLOOD PRESSED out of humans just because they did not believe in his son?

Is it moral that YOUR GOD has drowned babies and infants and children by the millions because some people have done something he does not like?

Let's not talk abbout what some Aliens MIGHT do....let's talk about what Christians and Jews and Moslims HAVE DONE and are STILL DOING in the name of your God and under his command and aid.​


ETA: And Craig B's argument is EXCELLENT too.... I would add that to my argument above.
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^^^This^^^

The question itself reminds me of religon classes in high school, and the George Carlin bit about playing "stump the Priest"
 
Merko said:
Let's say the Earth is becoming uninhabitable after a full-scale nuclear war. We have been able to build a space ship that can take 10,000 to Mars with the equipment they need to survive and colonize that planet.

There is no other option and if we don't send the space ship, everyone on Earth will still die within a year. However, in order to get enough thrust to make the space ship take off with such an enormous load, the blast will destroy the Earth completely, killing 10 billion people.

Is it right to kill 10 billion people to save 10 thousand? I would say that it is.
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Good luck getting the 10 billion to agree with that.
 
arthwollipot said:
It would depend upon the circumstance. Without watching the video, I would say that it would not be moral if there were a possible way to save the 6* billion people without raping 2 million girls. Given what I know of Dan Barker, that possibility would probably have been covered. If all other non-rape options were unavailable, then yes, this would be covered under Spock's Law.
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I didn't watch the video either, but I would say that the morality of the action would have multiple components just as human action has multiple components. However, the child-rape component would always be immoral. Thinking and working to save 6 billion people would be moral.

Since the logic behind such a scenario can always derive from a sufficiently complex mathematical system, Godel's incompleteness theorems apply. Mathematical models can be constructed to represent possible situations and moral axioms could be constructed to represent the correct and moral actions. It will always be impossible to derive every possible solution to a moral dilemma without realizing logical inconsistencies in the moral system. If the articulated moral system was held to be consistent, the moral dilemma would be "translated" into an equation in such a way that variables would be missing. Missing variables mean missing solutions.

So it may appear that child-rape is the only solution to the problem, but it is not. Other solutions exist, but we just can't find them. Also, ANY THEORETICALLY COMPLETE MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF A MORAL SCENARIO WOULD BE IN NP.

So child-rape is always immoral because there always will be another way to save the 6 billion people, but a person might have to be immoral here because he is unable to find all of the solutions to the problem.
 
Taking the argument as is with no embellishment - If you rape 2 million girls to save 10 billion lives, is it moral to do so?

No. It would not be moral to rape 2 million people in the name of 10 billion. Those 10 billion are now complicit in that rape because they were given no choice. The girls were given no choice. The only person who has a choice is the mega-rapist. It can be argued that the responsibility of bearing this choice gives him justification for his actions but moral justification is reliant on positive outcome. The rape of 2 million people is not a positive outcome under any circumstances, even 2 million alive but raped vs 10 billion dead.
 
bookitty said:
Taking the argument as is with no embellishment - If you rape 2 million girls to save 10 billion lives, is it moral to do so?

No. It would not be moral to rape 2 million people in the name of 10 billion. Those 10 billion are now complicit in that rape because they were given no choice. The girls were given no choice. The only person who has a choice is the mega-rapist. It can be argued that the responsibility of bearing this choice gives him justification for his actions but moral justification is reliant on positive outcome. The rape of 2 million people is not a positive outcome under any circumstances, even 2 million alive but raped vs 10 billion dead.
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Moral sentiment tends to break down under such dilemma. I think that from a utilitarian viewpoint it is internally consistent to rape 2 million to save 10 billion.

I think the problem lies in the fundamental failure to understand what morality is. It's not a law of physics that governs the universe. It's not objective in the sense that it is a priori. It's not absolute.

There is no right or wrong answer. There is only moral sentiment, desire to survive, inherent perceived value of human life, suffering, reason and calculations. That's it. At some point we need to accept the limits of our finite minds and accept that we ar biased and strive to reason better and more consistent ethics.
 
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No, it's not morally acceptable to rape a person, even to save the lives of three thousand others. I would mourn the deaths of the three thousand, but as an atheist that seeks to have the a positive impact on those I interact with in this life, I refuse to rape someone.

Assuming that this fantastical situation could somehow become practical in the real world, the moral responsibilty for the deaths would fall on the killing agent, not on the people that refused to perform rapes.

I would not like to think my own life had been spared at the cost of an innocent person being raped, either.
 
RandFan said:
Moral sentiment tends to break down under such dilemma. I think that from a utilitarian viewpoint it is internally consistent to rape 2 million to save 10 billion.

I think the problem lies in the fundamental failure to understand what morality is. It's not a law of physics that governs the universe. It's not objective in the sense that it is a priori. It's not absolute.

There is no right or wrong answer. There is only moral sentiment, desire to survive, inherent perceived value of human life, suffering, reason and calculations. That's it. At some point we need to accept the limits of our finite minds and accept that we ar biased and strive to reason better and more consistent ethics.
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The utilitarian viewpoint and it's partner in crime, The Great Good, are immoral when it starts with the premise that no individual human life is unique or worth saving.
 
bookitty said:
The utilitarian viewpoint and it's partner in crime, The Great Good, are immoral when it starts with the premise that no individual human life is unique or worth saving.
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Good thing that neither hold that.
 
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Novest said:


Hopefully this is in the right forum, since consensus says Atheism isnt a religion. Do other Atheists agree rape could be moral in the situation - Raping 2 million girls to save 6* billion people.
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Maybe not a "religion" but it is a faith. Hawking disappointed me with his evidence that there is no God with a proverbial black box where "and then some magic happened here". Also, there are atheist cults.

Science demands more than just "hey, those other guys are wrong".

I think the YouTube link does not work in 64 bit browser. I will look at it later.
 
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bookitty said:
The utilitarian viewpoint and it's partner in crime, The Great Good, are immoral when it starts with the premise that no individual human life is unique or worth saving.
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BTW: I should note that my username RandFan is in deference to Ayn Rand. While I don't accept much of her philosophy I accept her premise that each individual is a noble person worthy of all rights and privileges as anyone else.

Let me ask you this question. You are on a sinking ship much like the Titanic. There are not enough life rafts for everyone. Should everyone die?
 
By the way, I think Mohammed actually did get a couple of things right or at least can be interpreted to be right. (biology, astronomy)

And Joesph Smith actually did get a handful of things right. (predictions, I think)

But a clock that does not work is right twice a day.
 
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