Night FM

I'm curious what your opinion is on the best ways to prevent domestic violence. My understanding is that most resources dedicated to preventing domestic violence are either legal resources, or private sector resources (e.x. websites which host escape plans, battered women's shelters, and so on, though I'm aware that men can also be victims of domestic violence). My assumption is that the biggest barrier to preventing domestic violence is if it is an ongoing thing which the victim enables by returning to the abuser. Obviously this would fall outside of the realm of the law, since the law can only arrest the perpetrator once an incident occurs or issue a protective order which can't be enforced if the victim doesn't enforce it. If the victim continuously returns to the abuser and doesn't enforce their rights, then it's a situation which can perpetuate itself outside of the eyes of the law or wider society. Therefore, I'm curious what changes are possible to make to existing resources for preventing domestic violence, assuming people believe they aren't sufficient, and to what extent domestic violence can realistically be prevented by legal and social resources (e.x. even assuming that everything being done right, there would likely still be instances of domestic violence which are impossible to prevent).

Basically, I believe that if all laws and social institutions disappeared, that people would potentially behave in much more barbaric ways than they do in everyday life. Not necessarily everyone, but many would, and there is ample evidence that "ordinary" people can act in uncivilized ways under specific circumstances. This is why I don't totally buy into atheist arguments that, unlike theists, they don't do "good out of fear", because the reality is that many secular institutions, such as the laws of one's nation or state, play a role in how they behave, even if they take it for granted. If there was no perceived consequence for murder, people would be more likely to murder than they currently are, whether the social rules against murder come from the law or from the Bible. This isn't even a line of thought that comes specifically from "religion" as often claimed, and can be sourced to thinkers such as Freud, who posited that the invention of civilization "sublimated" our more primal impulses.

Basically, I believe that if all religions disappeared, people would arrive at the conclusion that there is one God. The debate would be over "which one", or rather what the specific characteristics of God are. Even "belief in science" is essentially appealing to a higher cosmic principle than oneself, and fills the void.

If we're using the Bible as a source, it specifically says this: 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Timothy 6%3A10&version=KJV

Regardless, people frequently use the categorizations of humans as "animals" and "apes" in a reductive way, to imply that humans are purely materialistic or hedonistic (based on the assumption that animals are purely materialistic, which may not even be the case).

This could be used to argue that animals have a sense of the sacred: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-chimpanzee-behavior-may-be-evidence-of-sacred-rituals/ Even more intriguing than this, maybe we found the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees. Indigenous West African people have stone collections at “sacred” trees and such man-made stone collections are commonly observed across the world and look eerily similar to what we have discovered here.

I'm not suggesting that, I'm just curious what's stopping technological progress from being used toward destructive ends, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Was being able to travel to the moon worth the invention of nuclear weapons? What checks are there on scientific and technological advancement leading to dangerous scenarios.

Human's aren't animals unless people decide to apply that arbitrary category to them. Having biological similarities to other living things doesn't automatically make the categorization valid. I'd argue that humans are defined far more by what they create than merely by their biology.

My arguments stand. We don't believe it's acceptable to murder people. If we believed that humans weren't special in some way that other animals aren't, we would likely have less problem with killing a person than killing a gorilla, since humans aren't an endangered species. I'd argue, if anything, there is a hierarchy of complexity to nature, and humans happen to be on the top of it. This is why we find it more acceptable to kill a mammal than a human, and more acceptable to kill an insect than a mammal, and so on.

Given that there are multiple groups that call themselves "Satanists", and some of them don't believe in a literal Satan, or engage in practices associated with Satanism (e.x. human or animal sacrifice), can there be said to be one cohesive definition of Satanism. I'd personally argue that "true" Satanists would be cults or sects that practice human sacrifice, black magic, and so forth (e.x. ONA), and that atheistic sects such as the LaVeyan Church of Satan are "pseudo-Satanists". I've also heard of individuals who promote immoral behaviors (e.x. the Marquis de Sade) described as Satanists, despite being nominally atheist. But since these are just my opinions, and Satanism doesn't seem like a particularly well-recognized form of "religion", it's hard to say.

I don't have a full grasp of them, but my view is that they essentially acknowledge the equivalent of a God or supreme being or principle of the cosmos, even if they don't say they do outright. (I'm probably thinking of Buddhism in specific). I'm also aware that there are polytheistic sects, but the more intellectual variants seem to reject the polytheistic pantheons and acknowledge a monotheistic God or equivalent. To me, this is similar to how the more enlightened Greek and Roman philosophers rejected the popular pantheon of deities and acknowledged a monotheistic God or some equivalent.

When someone argues that it should be legal to kill and eat humans since they aren't an endangered species, then maybe I'll consider the idea that humans aren't special in some way, but as of now I believe it's more than obvious that they are, regardless of their common ancestry. I was talking about the intellectual potential, not the practical ability to do so without the required pre-existing technology. Another example of how humans are different than animals: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29762596 Sexual aggression, or behaviors which would be considered rape if humans did it exists as a mating behavior in the great Apes. However, humans recognize that this behavior is morally wrong despite it having a biological basis. Humans don't believe that simply because "other apes do this" that they should do it as well.

People had the same intellectual potential. Obviously, they wouldn't have the practical ability to "build one from scratch" since doing so relied on pre-existing technology. But if a genius from the days of ancient Greece was time-warped to the present day, he would be significantly more intelligent than the average human.

We've seen people with the intellectual ability to since as far back as recorded human history. I've already explained it. It's not that complicated. The zoological definitions are based solely on biological similarities that humans have with animals. Since they ignore the types of activities and needs which humans pursue that make them distinct from animals, they are irrelevant to the argument, since whether these claims about human biology are "true" or not does not in any way change the argument, and no one is saying that humans "don't" share a common ancestor. There is nothing compelling people to ignore human achievements in sciences, arts, philosophy, and so on and reduce humanity to the level of purely biological characteristics. And there are multitudes of other arguments to be made that humans are unique and should be treated as unique. For example, do you believe that laws against murder should apply to killing fruit flies? Or do believe that it should be legal to kill and eat a human because it's legal to kill and eat a cow? I doubt it. Common sense alone is enough to dictate that humans are unique regardless of what biological traits they share with animals.

Science is irrelevant since zoological classifications don't take into account things that humans create, such as arts, sciences, and so forth. I'm not buying the explanation that the differences seen in humans are reducible to the brain to begin with. And regardless of what role the brains of humans play in the things they create, we don't see animals with "larger" brains building supercomputers. That's a good place to start from. I'd argue it's self-evident enough.

Less complex. I'm arguing that humans are distinct enough to be classified as separate based on definitions outside the scope of mere biological similarities. Not necessarily so. And a "few" large differences can be more significant than "many" small ones. That depends on if you define a human brain as "just another brain" as opposed to a unique gland.

I'm curious how many of these denominations are predicated on simply reading the Bible in its entirety. I'll wager that most of them aren't.

Having a common ancestor is irrelevant to the fact that humans are significantly different than other members of the animal kingdom, such as in their ability to create arts, sciences, philosophies, technologies, and so forth. Often, whether intentionally or unintentionally, referring to humans as "animals, apes", and so on is being done to reduce humans to the status of lesser animals.

It's not my fault the science is wrong due to being based on bad definitions. The vast differences between humans and other living things are more than obvious. The biological similarities are irrelevant to this point. So a reductive definition which simply groups living things together based solely on biological similarities while ignoring the differences is very often a bad one indeed.

The context is pretty simple. Those are laws of the ancient state of Israel. If some people decide they're wrong "in a vacuum" because they either didn't read or didn't understand the context, then that's heretical. The New Testament makes it pretty clear what the relevance of the Old Law is, and obviously there was no commandment to institute and enforce those laws into perpetuity. No one is cherry-picking. Those are laws of an ancient nation, not perpetual commandments that apply "in a vacuum". No one is saying that any of the laws of the ancient state of Israel should be laws today in the developed world, and nothing in the New Testament indicates that they should or have any legal relevance outside of Israel. If the foundation is based on not understanding the Bible to begin with, then it's not worth commenting on. See above. It's not my fault that people who claim to be "Christian" bastardize the Bible as atheists likewise do.

No I would be right. People aren't animals. Or apes. Or anything of the sort. The definition of "animal" was made up by people, and it's a bad one inasfar as it ignores the differences between mankind and other living things.

No, they were the laws of an ancient nation. You're talking them out of context.

I want to hear others' opinions on under what circumstances should war occur, and how it should be waged. (I'm aware that there are existing bodies such as the Geneva convention which regulate the rules of war). I'm not of the opinion that war can never realistically occur, but obviously there should be restraints on it.

Giving free will and intending for people to use it in a certain way are two different things.