Well, I wasn't going to respond to this thread again today (it takes time and effort...), but as usual, I couldn't resist.
Sphynx said:
From what you are saying, since Iraq (under Saddam) signed treaties against genocide (as I recall, they were even on the UN security council and as such, were technically supposed to be a part of enforicing those treaties), that would be the most reasonable charge to be brought up against him since he could be charged with it in his own (or what was once his own) sovereignty.
Well, even this wouldn't be a valid charge - as I said earlier, the president of Iraq (like any president) is immune to prosecution. I suppose the Iraqi constitution probably included the possibility of lifting the president's immunity - but this constitution was overthrown by the United States, along with the rest of the regime. Effectively, this means that there is nobody out there that could legitimately lift Saddam Hussein's immunity - and since we produced this situation by overthrowing his government, the least we can do is accept the consequences of our actions.
So, I was wondering if you would be willing to share something else, Quarto. You have stated clearly and respectfully why you disagree with what is going on as far as the trial is concerned, and you have said a bit about what you think should happen instead. Perhaps you could tell us more about what you think should be done in this case?
I'll be happy to. In fact, I can give you a historical analogy.
Once upon a time - not too long ago, in fact - in a certain backwards country ruled by an ineffectual monarch, there was a certain young officer. Along came the revolution, which overthrew the monarchy, and established a republic. The young officer joined the republican forces. But the nation was divided - at least half of the population wanted to restore the kingdom. So, a counter-revolution ensued, turning into a civil war. The civil war turned into genocide - in the name of their republican values, the dictators of this so-called democracy were more than happy to slaughter entire villages and cities, women and children included, to restore order. They didn't have access to chemical weapons - it happens
. But they came up with other, equally effective methods, for example to load hundreds of people into the hold of a ship, and then sink the ship. As our young officer rose in ranks, his participation in the quelling of the counter-revolution grew. He helped capture an important city (where, presumably, the population did not fare too well afterwards...), and soon afterwards helped restore order in the capital... by using the army, including artillery, to clear the streets of protesters. You can certainly be sure that quite a few people died.
Eventually, this young officer reached the pinnacle of power - he became a dictator. Soon after this, his country was at war again. In fact, his country was so frequently at war, that eventually a few of the neighbouring states got together and got him out of power.
Who was this young man, whose biography and list of crimes sounds disturbingly similar to Saddam Hussein? In the middle east, there had been several kingdoms ruled by ineffectual monarchs who were overthrown by the military. But I can't be talking about Qadaffi or Nasser - no international coalition bothered with them. So, who am I talking about?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about one of the most famous and respected generals in the history of mankind: the brilliantly genocidal Napoleon Bonaparte.
And there's my solution for you: the Americans have control of many, many islands in the Pacific. Any one of these islands is the perfect place to send him into exile. Once he is there, by the way, it would be America's responsibility not only to make sure that he doesn't escape, but also that he is well taken care of, and comfortable.
Yes, it might seem bizarre and twisted to suggest that we should care for a deposed dictator's comfort. But it is the right thing to do, and the traditional thing to do. He can't escape his punishment one way or another - and in the meantime, the least we can do is use him to encourage other dictators like Fidel Castro to step down of their own free will. Ultimately, this will help us avoid bloodshed - had Saddam Hussein had a guarantee that he'd be taken care of after leaving exile, it's probable that the American invasion (which
would have taken place either way, according to US government officials) would not have involved a single shot.
Spirit's Dommo! said:
Hmm, if you've convinced yourself this is the "truth" in a kind of Sinai moment.. is there really any point in my answering your queries with alternate argument?
Well, in a way there indeed isn't because, you see, you've just proven my point. However, if
you are willing to accept that the truth may not be on your side (see, that's the other side of the coin - you get offended when I say that what I wrote was the truth, but in doing so, you also imply that
what you wrote is the truth. How is that different from what I'm doing?), then read on.
(and yeah, in some ways we are hijacking this thread - but the topic is vaguely related, and besides, Sphynx basically started this thread at my request, so I don't think he'll mind)
Religion and morality are based upon the concept that no matter what happens, some things are permanent. Good will always be good. Evil will always be evil. The truth will always be true. Murder will always be evil, et cetera. Different religions and moral systems vary in the details, but they all agree about this permanency.
Atheists do not.
You mention that Christianity has changed - you couldn't be more wrong. Christianity
has never changed. That's why we steadfastly refuse to recognise any of the modern-day stupidities ("oh, it's not murder if the child wasn't born", et cetera). The changes that you perceive are divided into two kinds:
- Organisational changes. It is true, for example, that once upon a time, Catholic priests were permitted to marry. This was later forbidden, and now there is once again talk within the Catholic Church about permitting this (though this is unlikely). Such changes, obviously, have nothing to do with morality. The Catholic Church's viewpoint is not that God forbids Catholic priests from marrying - it's simply a decision that the Church made as an organisation. At the time when this had happened, there had been many scandals involving married priests (who in some places had effectively established dynasties, passing on their position from father to son), and the Church decided that although there's nothing immoral about married priests, marriage brings with it certain temptations that they would prefer not to be subject to.
- Reinterpretations, misinterpretations, and corrections of misinterpretations of the canon. The kill/murder example you bring up is a case in point - except that your understanding is the exact opposite of the truth. It is the original that used the word "murder", and it is the King James Bible that misinterpreted this as "kill". The canon as such never changes - but occasionally someone makes a mistake like the one above, and it sometimes takes a few centuries before the mistake is actually corrected. However, such small issues are never a big deal - yes, some transations of the Ten Commandments (heck, most translations) include the erroneous "thou shalt not kill" form, but thanks to the rest of the canon, as well as the two thousand years' worth of Christian works on the subject, we all know that it is not immoral, for example, to kill someone as a lawful punishment, or in general to kill in defence.
Now, having addressed the permanency of religion, let's return to the topic at hand, which is the issue of whether atheists can have a moral system.
Firstly, I suppose I should point out that you haven't addressed my challenge - I asked you to come up with an argument as to why an atheist should consider murder to be wrong
under any and all circumstances. There is a point to this - if you can't come up with such an argument, I fail to see why I should waste
my time explaining something to you when you're incapable of proving your point. It seems that in this situation, I win by default. However, you might view this as a cheap and easy way of getting out of the argument simply by saying "ha ha, I win"... so I'll humour you, and explain my point of view further. My apologies if I bore you with the length of this argument.
What, I'd like to ask you, is the point of a system of moral standards? Why do we choose to live by such a system? I have pointed you to the only thing that comes to me when I try to think of an answer to this question - God (or Gods, spirits, et cetera, if we really must be all-inclusive). You misinterpret my answer - you get offended by the notion that people live by a moral system simply out of the fear of God's punishment, or because they want God's rewards. If you bothered to find out anything about Christian theology, you would know that this has never been the Christian way. Yes, Christian theology does acknowledge that doing things that displease God will result in punishment, and yes, it also acknowledges that doing things that please God (including showing regret for those things that displease him - God is much easier to please than displease
) will get you an eternal reward.
However, that's entirely besides the point. The reasons why Christians follow their system of moral values is because they
love God. If you have ever had a wife or a girlfriend that you love, you will immediately understand the point - you don't buy your wife flowers because you want to have sex with her (even though that, ultimately, is one of the rewards you get for doing things that please her). You buy her flowers simply because you love her and want to show your love to her - not to be rewarded, but just so she knows.
People change, though - today, your girlfriend might be happy if you buy her a box of chocolates. Tomorrow, she might be angry with you because she ate all the chocolates in one sitting and got constipated. So tomorrow, buying her chocolates will no longer be a good act, and you may indeed feel the need to do something else to apologise for what, just yesterday, had been a good act.
God does not change. What pleased him yesterday still pleases him today, and tomorrow, and in five hundred years' time. And this is the foundation of morality... if you want to express the concept of morality in one sentence, the best sentence to do so is St. Augustine's "Love God... and do as you please" - which simply means that as long as you love God, you can essentially do anything you like, because you won't like anything that God doesn't like. So, Christian morality is changeless, permanent. Indeed, we could argue that this is one of the tests of moral systems - if a moral system says that something is good today even though it was bad yesterday, then it's not a system worth following, because there's no guarantee that what you're doing today won't be considered a sin tomorrow.
...This leads us back to atheism, and the vital question -
what permanent system of morality could possibly an atheist have? Morality, as I've tried to show above, is based on love. So an atheist may base his system of morality on love, too. But the very idea of atheism is to reject the existence of anything that doesn't physically exist -
and everything that physically exists is subject to change. Therefore, the atheist cannot possibly come up with a permanent system of morality. And this is why atheists, though of course they'd sooner die than admit it, can only develop their moral systems by stealing moral values from religions like Christianity. But they're screwed - because separated from God, moral values cannot exist, and it takes no time whatsoever for them to be twisted beyond all recognition.
...And so we come to moral relativism. If you're an atheist, your system of moral values will be based on the things you love. You love your wife, so anything that pleases her is good, anything that doesn't is bad. You love your country, so you obey its laws, and so on. And then you're told that Saddam Hussein is a criminal, because he committed genocide.
"Well," you think, "sure, nobody here likes genocide. If I committed genocide, I'd be a criminal, so he must be a criminal too."
Only, then Saddam Hussein comes to the witness stand to defend himself.
"Why did you kill all those people," asks the judge.
"Because I love my country. I want to devote my life to making this country a better place. And these people, they were agents of our enemies, they wanted to spoil my efforts!"
And that's the stumper - you and Saddam Hussein follow the same moral guidelines (to love your country and do everything you can to improve it), and you've come to different conclusions. You may not have committed genocide... but then again, you're also not the ruler of Iraq. You can't prove that killing a few hundred thousand rebellious Kurds wasn't the right thing to do. You have no choice - you will either make a hypocrite of yourself (by acknowledging that some things are indeed constant), or you will have to conclude that
Saddam Hussein is a really nice guy.
There is one final point I want to make. A true atheist, who's absolutely convinced of his faith (because, you know, atheism is a twisted form of religion - you can't actually prove that God doesn't exist, so you have to
believe in it), who spends time thinking about what it means to be an atheist will quickly reach the following conclusion - in fifty years, I'll be dead. I can marry and have children, but they will only be a burden. Nothing will come of it, because by the time they start being useful, I'll be dead. And why should I try to improve my country? I can spend my entire life doing it... but then I'll be dead. And when I'm dead... I'm dead, nothing is of any value to me any more, because there's no afterlife. So... why do anything for the benefit of others? The only one I should care about is me. The only moral system I can have must revolve around me. If somebody tries to murder me, that's a sin. If I murder someone, it's a good thing.
And that's the end of the line - that's where atheism destroys society. Now, if you please, I encourage you to prove me wrong. But please, don't bother responding bit by bit to this post - that will lead us into a long argument that proves nothing. You can prove that you're right by doing one simple thing - as I said earlier, you just need to come up with an argument as to why an atheist should consider murder to be wrong
under any and all circumstances. If you can convince me that there is something permanent, apart from God, that atheists can use to construct a permanent system of moral values, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong. But if you cannot - then I want
you to acknowledge that what I said about atheists, however demeaning to them it is, is indeed the truth.
...Whew. I think I'm done for today
.
). Anyway, I'll respond to all three of you (Vindicator, Delance, Corsair), in order of posting.
) duty. The only caveat is that it has to be conducted within the boundaries of marriage, for the purpose of procreation.
. Still, this is the closest you've come to actually making a point that makes sense, so I'll spend a minute on it.