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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

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You Asked, I Told and Update

CW: Spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and some non-graphic discussion of childhood sexual abuse

Hello!!!

Wow, I am so, so sorry for falling off the grid like that. I thought I was going to have WAY more time in October/November to work on the fic and work on fandom stuff in general, but my professional life threw me a huge right hook and I got completely sidetracked for weeks. So I’m off schedule a bit, in terms of having the next chapter. I’m sorry for the delay.

I’m done with the full draft of Chapter 37 (about 23k - “short” but emotionally very dense) and am working through final revisions now. However, I also had to do an extensive amount of 9/11-related research for it, and part of that research has been reviewing oral histories of New Yorkers from the day of the attacks, and I came to the shocking realization that much of the prologue is historically inaccurate. Moreover, it’s shamefully inconsistent with the way that New Yorkers would respond to such an event. I’m embarrassed by how shoddy of a job I did with it.

Thus, I’m also going to be rewriting the prologue and including more accurate details, both historically and in terms of character dynamics. I mean, there’s no way Bucky could even live in Brooklyn and be a first responder at Ground Zero! All the bridges and tunnels were shut down. Shame on me. There will be ripple effects throughout the entire fic. Sigh. This is just round one of the massive amount of revisions I will be doing to the early chapters of the fic, which I wrote years ago now. I was going to wait to post both at the same time, but I don’t want to make you wait that long. I’ll just give you a notification when I finish the prologue revisions, and it’ll be like a little bonus chapter.

Anyway, here are some asks! Starting with a two-parter

First, thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you’re finding this fic moving. It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster for these characters, and my hope (I guess?) is to have that be a parallel process for the readers. I think you hit the nail on the head that this relationship is exhausting. And you’re also right that not everyone would have the perseverance to keep coming back to it. It would be so much easier to amputate, pack up and go home. But once these characters get back into each other’s orbit, it’s very challenging for them to not keep crashing back into each other. It’s partially because they just love each other so much, but it’s also because they have an unhealthy relationship dynamic that sets them up for these toxic cycles. This will become especially apparent in the next chapter. They love each other, yes, but they also use each other to fill the gaping holes and insecurities they have within themselves. And they’re horrible communicators to boot. It’s a perfect storm. But at least they are going to try out some of this therapy crap maybe…?? We’ll see!

Along a similar line…

Thank you so much. That is so lovely of you to say, and I’m happy that I have your trust with this story. That said, I don’t know if it’s weakness if you’re not willing to run yourself through a miserable gauntlet of suffering the way Steve and Bucky are doing in this story. Would we call Rikki weak for drawing a boundary and stepping away from Bucky when his alcoholism was destroying their family? Some people used other words, but I’m not sure if weakness is the thing that might make someone walk away from a relationship like this. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should keep slamming your face against the same wall until you’re black and blue. This is a highly dysfunctional couple, and these men have serious issues they are grappling with personally that make them ripe for this kind of relationship. Bucky is an open wound, crippled with shame, desperate to do anything to feel better. Steve has deep attachment injuries from his chronically ill mother and deadbeat dad, as well as major control issues, and he wants to latch on and fix and make right, and if he manages every variable just right, he really thinks he can do it. And then throw in a fuckton of PTSD and TBI and alcoholism and physical injuries on top of it. So no, I wouldn’t rush to judge yourself for not envisioning yourself gutting it out in this grim scenario.

But I also think we can identify with at least one of these characters, and we can root for people who want to overcome the shit that life has thrown at them to be with the person they love. Because they really do love each other. There’s just so much noise that it’s hard to tease out the signal sometimes.

Good call on Bucky being a notoriously unreliable narrator, and he’s someone who is likely to underreport his suffering. Aside from his war-related injuries and his psychological struggles, Bucky’s most symptomatic issues are his GI problems. He has both peptic and esophageal ulcers, which are slightly different creatures. Peptic (stomach) ulcers, in Bucky’s case, have been caused by H. pylori and exacerbated by smoking and drinking. The esophageal ulcer was most likely caused by an excess of stomach acid due to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and, once again, exacerbated by drinking. Both of these have led to nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and weight loss. They have really emerged since Bucky got out of the military and pursued drinking with renewed vigor. Though he wouldn’t know it at the time because he doesn’t keep up with these things, his GERD is very possibly linked to acute, high dose exposure to the exceedingly toxic “dust” from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. It’s one of the most widespread chronic health ailments of those exposed, aside from lower respiratory problems.

And now for some heavy-ass questions from licketysplittt — see CW above.

Yes, I am going to talk more about the context of Bucky’s abuse for sure, so I won’t go into the depths here. But I will say now that you are absolutely right that he has complex feelings for his abuser. I think it would have been easy to write him as just being unidimensionally angry or ashamed, but I know that’s not the experience of everyone who has experienced sexual abuse. This is especially the case if the person who commits the abuse it is a family member or caretaker or friend or trusted religious figure or someone who’s not just a “stranger in the bushes” type. I wanted to try to capture that experience in this fic. Bucky has also been multiply victimized by multiple people over the course of his life, which adds to this complexity and creates an internal narrative for him. Like what does it mean that this keeps happening to him? This is also not an uncommon experience for people who have been abused as children. And there’s also the added piece of this that Bucky’s gay, right? So he’s got this very, very young sexuality that’s on the verge of blooming (your Disney sexuality perhaps, sitting close, holding hands, etc) and this older male is making sexual advances toward him, and so he might ask if this person “saw” something in him aside from his social isolation that made him choose him. These are certainly questions he’s tortured himself over. I will get more into all of this, I promise.

Winnie and George undoubtedly knew that their kid wasn’t a very popular one. But perhaps they always knew that he was a kid who wasn’t destined to have many friends because he’s “sensitive” or however they would characterize him (I’m sure they had different ways of viewing him). And I think it’s important to take into account the type of household that Bucky was in and the way he would shape his behavior. George was this total wildcard — “Best Dad in the World” most days but a screaming, violent tyrant at these odd, unpredictable times that were fucking terrifying for everyone in his path. This is a house where it’s best just to shut up and create as few problems as you can, because you don’t want to be the one that dad is gonna flip his shit at. And so everyone is walking on eggshells and Bucky is going to get very good at lying about how bad things are. And oh! Jamie finally has a friend, how wonderful. There will be more details in upcoming chapters about how this all transpires, but I think the dynamics at home made it possible for a lot of this to happen. And you’re right that these were not the most skillful parents, and their marriage was very strained and stressful for everyone. And these fictional assholes also frustrate me! The emotional content can be hard to write. It’s one reason these past few chapters have taken me soooooo painfully long.

Great questions! You are all so thoughtful and kind. Sorry again for getting so terribly sidetracked. I am going to keep plugging away at the chapter and at comments and asks. I’m optimistic that I will have the next chapter for you within the next two weeks. I am pleased with this chapter and hope you’ll like it. Thank you for being so patient!!!

#YOU ASKED I TOLD #send me asks #baghdad waltz #you are the best

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noanswersingenesis · 7 years

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“Morality Comes From God”

If you’ve been alive for more than a millisecond, you’ve likely heard some imbecile droning on about how THEIR God - really, their particular idea of God - is the basis for morality. They’ll likely wax philosophical on how you can’t justify YOUR morality, because you have the audacity to not believe in their particular imaginary friend. They’ll tell you with the iron clad assurance and conviction that only comes from dogmatic belief that - even if you don’t admit it - you get all your morality tangentially from their God. He’s written His laws on your heart, so even if you don’t believe in Him, He’s responsible for your morals. They say that you can’t explain where your morals come from if God doesn’t exist. And then they’ll give you a satisfied, smug little smirk as if they’ve just invented the wheel.

Let me draw a line in the sand here. I want to make sure no one misconstrues my words, so I’ll highlight them in this fancy, bold italics text:

These people are fucking stupid.

Yes, I do mean that. Yes, I can justify that. Don’t like it? Tough shit. I’m pased the point of caring if I offend any of you. I find your willingness to pontificate and philosophize about ideas you don't even begin to understand offensive. I find your willingness to vomit those undigested, half formed ideas down the throats of children who don’t know any better offensive. I find your insistence in regurgitating illogical nonsense that has been shown repeatedly to be fallacious to be offensive. And I find your refusal to educate yourselves when the information is at your fingertips EXTREMELY offensive. In the age of information, ignorance is a choice. And, sadly, it's one that those of you who continue to make these arguments choose. Every. Single. Day.

So honestly, I could give a fuck if I offend you. I hope I do. To quote Joh Stewart:

I make no apologies about this. Not even a small one. The rebuttals to every one of these bullshit ideas has been readily available and easily accessible for anyone with a double-digit IQ to comprehend for quite some time. If you’re going to make broad pronouncements of certainty without looking at available contradictory evidence, you are a fucking idiot.

So where does morality come from, if not from a spooky, timeless Sky Wizard? It’s got to come from God!

Well, first off, that question in itself is disingenuous. You’re making the assumption that if I can't conclusively show where my morality comes from, you can simply postulate your version of Douglas Adams’ “42″ and pretend that it’s been conclusively proven to be true. See, in Adams’ fantastic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. The believers have their own version of “42″ in God. He’s the answer for them to life, the universe, and everything. If you have a question that doesn’t have a simplistic, pre-packaged answer, they're more than happy to insert God into the answer spot and call it a day. This is known as the God of the Gaps Fallacy, and I'm sad to say that it is still a major source of theistic argumentation.

Besides that, even if you could show that God is AN answer to the question of Morality (and I don’t believe you can), you have to go further and show that God is THE answer. That means that no other path to morality can even be plausible. If I can show reasonable evidence that morality evolved over time, and is still evolving as a human construct (and I can) then it falls to you to disprove that assertion (and i’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts you can’t even BEGIN to do that). But you can’t stop there. Then you need to prove that God exists. Any God. Just prove that there’s something we can call God and define it. But don’t stop there. Now you need to prove that the God you’ve proven is YOUR God. You need to prove all of his characteristics. You need to show evidence that He’s good. That He’s loving. That He answers prayer. All of it. And maybe not those specific things. Those were examples. Whatever your idea of God is, you need to show evidence of that SPECIFIC God, not just a generalized idea of God. If you want to make pronouncements on behalf of an eternal being you need to ABSOLUTELY define that being as narrowly as possible and prove that you - a mere mortal - can speak on It’s behalf. You need to show your qualifications. And don’t stop now! You’re so close! NOW you need to show that your SPECIFIC God has authored Morality. The same way I would need to show authorship of a book, or a song, or any other creative venture. I can’t just plagiarize something that already exists and try to pass it off as my own. If someone were to show that to be the case, I’d need to defend myself. Since your God is unable or unwilling to do what should, for Him, be a simplistic task: defending Himself - one he’s done BEFORE, but that is apparently now beneath Him, it falls to you believers to defend your God.

Your argument is so weak, I don’t even need to make one of my own. It’s actually enough to simply point out that you don’t have one.

I’m not required to mount a defense (I’m going to anyway, so calm down) against something that doesn’t even have a leg to stand on. I know a lot of you reading this don’t understand that concept. Here’s how it works: If I say that I’ve seen a bear with wings, and you don’t believe me, it’s up to me to show you evidence that I really did. The onus (that means the responsibility of proving something) is ALWAYS on the person making the claim, NEVER on the skeptic. Often, believers will try to shift the burden of proof on to their skeptical counterparts through linguistics games, or faulty logic. This is known as Shifting The Burden Of Proof, and it is yet ANOTHER logical fallacy.

Regardless, for the sake of the discussion here, I will accept the burden of proof that rightfully belongs to the opposition if, in doing so, I can get them all to shut the fuck up.

So for starters, lets look at the apologist’s favorite source of evidence - The Bible - and see what IT has to say on the issue.

(Genesis 2:25) “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Ok, now lets fast forward a bit. (Genesis 3:6-7) “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Paradox time! God is now going to punish Adam and Eve for doing something that they couldn’t know they weren’t supposed to do until after they did it. If the Tree Of Knowledge of Good And Evil “opens their eyes” then their concept of Morality came from eating the fruit, not from God. Want further confirmation of this concept? It’s right here! We see here, in this SAME account, that “knowledge” of evil seems to create evil. They had no problem being naked until they UNDERSTOOD what it meant to be naked in a different light, and then suddenly it was a problem. So being naked wasn’t “evil” until their perceptions were altered by the fruit. That seems to suggest there is no objective morality. Fancy that. We get further confirmation of this in verse 22 when God says: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” So the Biblical concept regarding morality is that it is a byproduct of perception. That altering your perception can alter your morality. That a difference in understanding can mean a difference in morality. Jolly good. Something the bible and I can agree on. It’s like the planets aligning. Doesn’t happen very often. One more quick tangent before we abandon the historical fiction reading in favor of more grown up evidences: CHRISTIAN ASSERTION: Morality comes from God. It’s objective and unchanging, just like God is unchanging. If something is wrong, it’s always wrong! ATHEIST RESPONSE: So then slavery is ok? Killing homosexuals is ok? Rape is ok if you pay the girl’s father? Killing babies is ok? *lists off dozens of scriptures supporting and/or condoning these and other horrific acts* ILLOGICAL CHRISTIAN RETORT: You need to look at that through the context of their culture. The time and place it was written. You can’t expect God to transcend time and geography concerning moral laws. Actually, I do. And if a god existed, they would. “Don’t Own Other People” and “Don’t Rape” would have been on the list of 10 commandments, rather than some Ego stroking bullshit about graven images and saying his name with a shitty attitude.

So now that we’ve dispensed with Harry Potter BC, let’s look at some evidence that ISN’T circular, anecdotal, unreliable, and generally fucking retarded:

The Veil Of Ignorance

The single most damning retort the religious idea of God-centric Morality, is that we simply don’t NEED God to be moral. There have been many arguments that have shown as much, but none so iron clad as the "veil of ignorance", a method of determining morality proposed in 1971 by American philosopher John Rawls. 1971 46 years ago. So there’s no fucking excuse for you NOT to know about it - at least in concept if not in name - if you’re making grand pronouncements about the definitive nature of the link between Morality and God. The basic concept is this: We have two people (let’s call them Steve and Jim) and Jim wants to kill Steve. Steve, upon finding out about this, blurts out “You can’t do that! It’s wrong!’ Well, how can Steve actually KNOW it’s wrong? And for that matter, how can he convince Jim? Enter the Veil of Ignorance. We remove Steve and Jim from the equation and simply state that two individuals will be involved in this scenario. One will be killing, and one will be killed. Behind the Veil, Steve and Jim don’t know which is which. Either of them could be the killer, or the victim. Now how do Steve and Jim feel about killing? Neither one of them WANT to be killed. So both are aware that - at least in this sense - killing is wrong. This concept works for ANYTHING. Try it out. Don’t think Homosexuals should be able to get married? Take a step behind the Veil of Ignorance. Now you, and a dozen individual are there - all ignorant to your gender. Your race. Your sexuality. Your religion. Everything. You’re nondescript person-blobs. One of you will have one of your fundamental rights denied because of a difference from the group. You don’t get to know what right. Perhaps all of the others are men, and you’re a woman. Perhaps they’re all Muslims, and you’re a christian. Perhaps you and 11 others are all white, and the outsider is black. You don’t get to know what the difference is, or who it falls to. Which side do you argue for? Exclusion based on a difference, or inclusion regardless of a difference? Suppose you argued for exclusion, and it turned out that the difference was that you were the only Christian. Would you be ok with that? The thought exercises you can do with the Veil are endless, and practically universally applicable. The core of the concept is that morality is an evolved response, and we as thinking humans know DAMN well when something is moral or immoral through basic logic. If you think the thing happening to or effecting someone else is actually happening to or effecting YOU, then you’re more likely to be honest about that. It’s just that some of us like to pretend they don’t understand that basic concept, so they can suggest that we all collectively rely on an old book that’s open to various interpretations and has, at best, a shaky moral grounding.

So now, let’s sidetrack for a moment so I can talk about this video: If There’s No God, Murder Isn’t Wrong, because that’s what started this tirade. This video is moronic, and the arguments it puts forth somehow aren’t even consistent within the span of the 5 minuet video! I know, I was shocked too. And let’s not ignore the fact that there are refutations to the arguments ATTACHED TO THE VIDEO if you view it on Youtube (but why would a believer in the validity of the arguments look at contradictory evidence? I mean really. Look at two sides of an issue? That’s crazy talk!) both in the comments section, and in response videos. There’s also videos and articles that totally dismantle the faulty reasoning of the video that are available if you’re willing to undertake the apparently excruciating labor of doing a 45 second search for the name of the video on Google (this was the very first link that came up. Seriously, it didn’t even take 30 seconds. How busy are you people if you don’t even have time to do that?!?) But since I know that none of you are going to take the time to look at any of that evidence, or read any of the things that have been written about it for the better part of a century (you can see the seeds of this sort of nonsense as far back as Thomas Aquinas in the mid 1200′s) let alone just what’s been written in the last dozen years, I’ll do the leg work for you. Let’s look at the transcript for this video, and I’ll explain to you why it’s absolute horseshit. The words of Dennis Prager, the author of the video, will be in bold, and my responses will be in normal font.

There is no God, Murder is STILL (usually) Wrong.

Do you believe that good and evil exist? Let me stop you right there. You’re already being disingenuous, because you’re not defining your terms. Given that you’re arguing on behalf of God, and given that this isn't my first rodeo, I'm going to wager dollars to donuts (again) that at some point in this video you're going to attempt to confuse us with the ambiguity of your language. So lets nip that right in the fucking bud.

GOOD - To be desired, or approved of. That which is morally right. To be beneficial or advantageous to someone or something. Appropriate to a particular purpose. EVIL - Profoundly immoral and malevolent. Harmful, or tending to harm. (Of a force or spirit) Embodying or associated with the forces of the devil. Something that is harmful or undesirable.

Now, by these definitions, I do believe in the concepts of good and evil. I have a feeling that’s not AT ALL what you’re driving at. Let’s see...

The answer to this question separates Judeo-Christian values from secular values. No, it doesn’t. Unless you can actually show that, you're lying. Not to give out spoilers, but I watched the rest of your video, and you are NOT able to show that. So stop lying.

Let me offer the clearest possible example: murder. Is murder wrong? Is it evil? Nearly everyone would answer yes. But now I’ll pose a much harder question: How do you know? I am sure that you think that murder is wrong. But how do you know? You actually asked three separate and distinct questions there. I can't help but notice that you tried to just lump the first two together - as if they’re the same thing - and plod on before anyone could notice that they aren't. Is murder wrong? The short answer is, “Not always.” Which you would think would be painfully obvious to you, given all of the murders committed by God in the Bible that you see NO issue with. What you're trying to do here, which is a common tactic when you're attempting to paint someone into a corner, is to couch the argument in black and white terms. Either it’s 100% wrong or it isn't wrong at all, ever. This is called a False Dichotomy, and it’s yet ANOTHER logical fallacy (sometimes called False Dilemma or Black and White Fallacy).

Is murder evil? Generally, if we use the definition given above, we could say that it is. It causes harm. There's really no way around that. I suppose that you could come up with a scenario where murder would not fit the definition of evil, but I can't think of one off my head. But is it “evil” in the spiritual, metaphysical sense? Because that seems to be what Mr. Prager is driving at. No. The only people who would accept THAT definition of evil are neck-deep in the kool-aid of religious terminology, and are fastidiously working their fingers to the bone in an attempt to make the language they’re arguing with ambiguous. It’s the only way they have any hope of winning the argument.

If I asked you how you know that that the earth is round, you would show me photographs from outer space, or offer me measurable data. But what photographs could you show, what measurements could you provide, that prove that murder or rape or theft is wrong? And THIS is why we have flat-earth imbeciles infecting our collective consciousness like a goddamn virus. Because idiots think a photograph they can’t verify or a measurement they can't reproduce or replicate are suitable forms of proof. If you want to KNOW that the earth is round, you’re shit out of luck. You can’t. Not really. You can have a measure of certainty, especially with solid proofs like these. But you can’t be totally certain. Just ask René Descartes. Should that sliver of doubt sway us to accept that a flat earth is plausible? Fuck no! But (and the irony here is more than palpable) that same sliver of doubt is often the BEST evidence available for believers. What evidence can I show that murder, rape, or theft is wrong? Again, the short answer is “Better evidence than you can dredge up from your goddamn bible.”

The fact is...you can’t. There are scientific facts, but without God there are no moral facts. There aren't scientific facts. Not the way that you’re meaning, with black and white certainty. There are theories. Those theories evolve and change. There aren’t moral facts either. You just like to pretend there are because it makes you sleep better at night. You still haven’t provided a shred of evidence for them, but you keep clutching at your bible like Linus to his blue blanket. Show me the moral code you derive from the scriptures. Would it, perhaps, go something like: Sacrifice, rape, rape, kill, rape, kill, kill, kill, misogyny, don’t eat shellfish, don’t blend fabrics, don’t make statues, kill, rape, don’t work on Saturdays, don’t say God’s name bad, rape, kill, don’t desire things that other people have, sacrifice, where you stick your penis totally matters (it doesn't matter if you're consenting adults), kill, kill, rape, own slaves, kill the children, rape the children if you have money, beats the slaves if you don’t kill them, women are objects, kill, rape, kill, praise the invisible tyrant for the stellar example he’s setting with all the killing? With morals like that, we’d be in a much better place these days, eh? Or are you just going to cherry pick the parts that you like? Love thy neighbor, don’t steal, etc... and ignore the rest of it? You know, because at the end of the day, your moral code surpasses that of the Bible.

In a secular world, there can only be opinions about morality. They may be personal opinions or society’s opinion. But only opinions. Every atheist philosopher I have read or debated on this subject has acknowledged that if there is no God, there is no objective morality. There’s not objective morality WITH God. Your own Bible proves as much. God’s decree to Noah after the flood: “Whosoever sheds a man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.” Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. A doctrine of vengeance. God’s decree via Jesus: “Ye have heard it said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you that ye resist not evil. Whosoever smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left also.” God’s moral law is overturned... by God. The reason those godless heathen atheists “acknowledged” that morality is subjective is because they’re not idiots.

Judeo-Christian values are predicated on the existence of a God of morality. In other words, only if there is a God who says murder is wrong, is murder wrong. Otherwise, all morality is opinion. The entire Western world – what we call Western Civilization – is based on this understanding. Again, you haven’t even begun to crawl, and you’re trying to run. Start at the beginning.

Now, let me make two things clear. First, this doesn't mean that if you don't believe in God, you can’t be a good person. There are plenty of kind and moral individuals who don’t believe in God and Judeo-Christian values. But the existence of these good people has nothing – nothing – to do with the question of whether good and evil really exist if there is no God. I’m with you so far...

Second, there have been plenty of people who believed in God who were not good people; indeed, more than a few have been evil – and have even committed evil in God’s name. The existence of God doesn't ensure people will do good. I wish it did. The existence of God only ensures that good and evil objectively exist and are not merely opinions. And you lost me on the last sentence. It doesn't. You just think it does. You can't conclusively show that to be true. So what is happening here is both of us have opinions, and you are trying to claim a divine mandate for yours. A divine mandate that you can neither prove, or show to be in any way different from my opinion that you’ve asserted has no divine mandate. So remind me again why what you’re saying is anything beyond wishful thinking and speculation? Because I’m not seeing it.

Without God, we therefore end up with what is known as moral relativism – meaning that morality is not absolute, but only relative to the individual or to the society. Without God, the words “good” and “evil” are just another way of saying “I like” and “I don’t like.” If there is no God, the statement “Murder is evil” is the same as the statement “I don't like murder.” Called it! No, those words have very REAL definitions. And, as I have already shown, the definitions for them are fine. We can understand the morality of an action (even murder) without your word games. In NO way is it simply saying “I like” or “I don’t like.” This is yet ANOTHER fallacy, in your apparent race to make sure that you hit ALL of them in a 5 minuet video. This one is known as a Strawman Argument.

Now, many will argue that you don't need moral absolutes; people won’t murder because they don't want to be murdered. But that argument is just wishful thinking. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao didn’t want to be murdered, but that hardly stopped them from murdering about a hundred million people. Wow. Barely got through the last fallacy, and you’re on to another one. That’s goddamn impressive. This one is the False Cause Fallacy. Essentially, you’re arguing that once a moral concept is understood, it can’t be ignored. Do you honestly think that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or any other perpetrator of what we would consider as immoral acts thought what they were doing was justified? I mean in a moralistic sense. Obviously they thought the ends justified the means. Kind of like the priest that wants to get his dick sucked by an altar boy. Just because practitioners of your religion decide, on a regular basis (seriously, there are multiple news stories every fucking week) to molest children does not indicate on it’s own that religious morality is invalid. What we CAN prove is that there are cases where someone acted in a manner that we would generally describe as immoral, and justified the actions as Moral with the aid of religion. Here’s just one example (and I've seen more than a few dozen just like it) where a horrific act was committed BECAUSE of belief in a God, and justified by the perpetrator as moral.

It is not a coincidence that the rejection of Judeo-Christian values in the Western world – by Nazism and Communism – led to the murder of all these innocent people. I like that you actually included the ACTUAL reasons (Nazism and Communism) or at least the largest contributing factors, in your attempt to link these deaths to disbelief. See the False Cause Fallacy directly above, because you’re doing it again.

It is also not a coincidence that the first societies in the world to abolish slavery – an institution that existed in every known society in human history – were Western societies rooted in Judeo-Christian values. And so were the first societies to affirm universal human rights; to emancipate women; and to proclaim the value of liberty. Don’t you DARE try to take credit for the abolishment of slavery, and women’s rights! How fucking stupid do you think people are? The bible is overflowing with misogyny, inequality, and INSTRUCTIONS FOR SLAVE MASTERS. If God wants credit for abolishing slavery, he fucking should have said something about it in his own goddamn book. But he didn’t. Unless, of corse, you mean the parts where he endorsed it.

Today, the rejection of Judeo-Christian values and moral absolutes has led to a world of moral confusion. There's only one person I see here who’s confused, and he’s trying desperately to convince me that I need his imaginary friend to tell me not to stab someone in the face.

In the New York Times, in March 2015, a professor of philosophy confirmed this. He wrote: “What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun? Would you be surprised? I was.” First, this is anecdotal because your source isn’t named. Don’t worry, I looked it up for you. The article referenced is here, and the “philosopher” is Justin P. McBrayer, who IS an actual philosopher with an actual PHd. Thats kind of surprising, because most of the stuff i looked up on him read like something from Ken Ham. Regardless, this is a blatant Strawman Assertion (see above) and serves to do nothing but shock the reader into agreement. This is called an Appeal To Emotion Fallacy, or more specifically an Appeal to Fear (also called argumentum ad metum) and is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by using deception and propaganda in attempts to increase fear or prejudice toward a competing idea. “If you don’t believe in God, children will learn to kill each other for fun.” This level of psychological fuckery would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

The professor then added: “The overwhelming majority of college freshmen view moral claims as mere opinions.” That’s a bit of an overstatement. And even if it wasn’t, what does that have to do with the validity of your assertions? Not a damn thing.

So, then, whatever you believe about God or religion, here is a fact: Without a God who is the source of morality, morality is just a matter of opinion. So, if you want a good world, the death of Judeo-Christian values should frighten you. Should it? And why exactly should it frighten me? Based on the complete lack of evidence you’ve offered? The crux of the assertion made here is no different than that of an adult man who, having grown up, left the comfort of his parents home, and began a life for himself laments, “But who will stop me from eating ice cream three meals a day? If no parental figure prevents me, then why shouldn’t I? And what of my friends and coworkers? What’s to stop THEM from eating ice cream three meals a day? Soon, the whole world will be obscenely overweight!” What frightens me is that people like you present fallacy after fallacy after motherfucking fallacy, and try to pass them off like carefully reasoned proofs. What frightens me is the neanderthal imbeciles that see no issue with anything you’ve said. What terrifies me is the notion that these same imbeciles want to suspend the rights of others and hold the scientific community hostage to appease the shallow, illogical, unproven, and wholly ridiculous concept that they have formed in their malfunctioning brains of exactly who or what God is. That’s far more frightening than your unfounded assertions.

So, seeing as how there wasn’t a drop of water in that well, lets look at some more evidence that morality has a very human origin.

Mirror Neurons

A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals. These signals between neurons occur via specialized connections called synapses. Neurons can connect to each other to form neural networks. They are major components of the brain.

A mirror neuron is one that fires both when an individual preforms an action AND when the individual observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the observed behavior, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in primate species. You can click on the link above if you want more accurate information about them, or do one of those 45 second Google searches that require so much effort. I will give the “as I understand it, as a mostly scientifically illiterate layperson” version below. All of this is summarized from the wikipedia article.

In the 80s and 90s, neurophysiologists at the University of Parma placed electrodes in a monkey’s head to study neurons. They were looking at neurons associated with the control of hand and mouth actions, like picking something up or moving it. They had the monkey reach for bits of food, and recorded the movement of neurons in relation to what motions the monkey made. They found that some neurons responded when the monkey observed a person picking up a piece of food, and ALSO when the monkey itself picked up the food. Further study showed identical results corresponding to mouth actions and facial gestures. Still further experiments confirmed that about 10% of neurons in the parts of the brain they were studying have "mirror" properties and give similar responses to observed actions.

In 2002 it was discovered that this mirror system also responds to the sound of actions. Reports on mirror neurons have been widely published and confirmed, with mirror neurons found in both inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions of the brain. Recently, evidence from functional neuro-imaging strongly suggests that humans have similar mirror neurons systems: researchers have identified brain regions which respond during both action and observation of action. Furthermore, functional magnetic resonance imaging can examine the entire brain at once, and suggests that a much wider network of brain areas shows mirror properties in humans than previously thought. These additional areas include the somatosensory cortex and are thought to make the observer feel what it feels like to move in the observed way.

I sense some of you glazing over. So let’s look at what this means for our morals.

If you are struck in the face, and I observe this happening, these neurons mirror the sensation in my own brain. To some degree, I feel you getting slapped. The speculation is that this is why we’re able to feel empathy for one another. Furthermore, this explains a large part of our evolution of morality. Seeing someone else suffer, we’re motivated to help them because it’s really like helping ourselves. When paired with the veil of ignorance, I fail to see any reason that stands up to scrutiny why morality should come from a God, and I see no reason to doubt that morality is a byproduct of evolution and a correctly functioning brain.

The Moral Landscape

Philosopher, author, and neuroscientist Sam Harris made this assertion in his 2010 book, The Moral Landscape: “Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see tht there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality.” And he’s right. We don’t see a morality that is based in a particular religious code that stands up to logical scrutiny. You don’t steal? So what? Neither do these individuals, and they come from a variety of different religions backgrounds - some of them entirely irreligious. The only time a particular code of morality can be specifically associated with a religion is when it comes into conflict with societal or generally accepted normalcy. You think gay men should be killed for offending God? Well, THAT belief is entirely religious and, not coincidentally, entirely illogical. According to Harris, our morality has peaks and valleys, high points and low points. We can make general distinctions between those high and low places, much like we can tell the difference between a mountain and a valley. He argues that we can still have a sort of moral objectivity, based entirely on science and reasoning, that does not in any was resemble the objective morality postulated by the religious. By the same token, it doesn’t resemble the version of purely subjective morality offered up by those who don’t understand the subtleties in play here, or those who would purposefully erect a strawman over them to bolster their own assertions. “If our well-being depends upon the interaction between events in our brains and events in the world, and there are better and worse ways to secure it, then some cultures will tend to produce lives that are more worth living than others; some political persuasions will be more enlightened than others; and some world views will be mistaken in ways that cause needless human misery.” In other words, we can objectively show the differences between the mountains and valleys in our moral landscape, without the aid of a sky wizard and his book of fables, but the differences between the various mountains are largely subjective, as are those between the valleys. Reading the book (which everyone should do) will flush this idea out in much greater detail, but I’m only concerned with the core concept here. I would strongly encourage you to check out the book for yourself.

A Logical Moral Code

So, let’s use these ideas to try and formulate a basic,logical moral code. Just as an example, we’ll use Killing, Murder, and Butchery. Let’s start with some quick definitions so we’re all on the same page. These are MY definitions from my own head, and have nothing to do with dictionary definitions or what have you. This is how I use these terms.

Killing - The taking of another life. Any other life. Man, woman, child, cat, dog, elephant, or whatever the hell Donald Trump is (sentient Cheetos powder?) for any reason.

Murder - Any killing that can’t be logically excused. An unlawful killing.

Butchery - Killing for sport, or for fun. Specifically, killing for no other purpose than the enjoyment of ending another’s life.

Ok. So now, is killing wrong? No. Period. We can’t possibly suggest that killing is wrong, as the bible does, (unless God says it’s ok... or rather commands it to be done) because there are times when killing someone would be the only justifiable action to take. Suppose that someone has broken into your home, and is holding your child at knifepoint. The only way to save the child is to kill the intruder. Is it justifiable to terminate the life of that individual? Of corse. No thinking person would advocate letting someone kill your child to save the life of an intruder. But WHY? Because God said so? I think not. It’s because we’ve evolved to look out for our own. We’ve developed an instinct to protect ourselves, our children, our family unit, our tribe, and so on. Because, to put it bluntly, the idiots who didn’t protect their children from danger didn’t get to have any grandkids. The idiots who didn’t protect their tribe got overtaken by another tribe that DID. Suppose your friend is in a tremendous amount of pain, and begs you to end his life. For the sake of argument, there’s no medical help available and you won’t be legally responsible for your actions. What’s the better alternative? Allow him to suffer, or to do as he asks and end his suffering? The religious mindset here is usually to allow the suffering to continue, because they’re obsessed with their own illogical concept of “life.” It’s always better to have a suffering individual, yearning desperately for the relief of the grave, than to allow a thinking being to make their own decisions regarding their own life and death, right? Because what we think Jesus wants is more important than what you want. Because bible. Personally, I think anything less than honoring their wishes and sending them to a peaceful oblivion is horrific, monstrous, and morally abhorrent. The news would suggest that many believers disagree with me, and that somehow God’s universal, eternal, flawless laws have missed my heart yet again. Maybe he inscribed them on my liver, which would explain my love for gin. Who knows?

We kill animals for food as well (even though this issue is regularly debated) because, as a collective, we’ve decided, for the time being, that since we’re omnivores and we’ve evolved to eat meat, that we shouldn’t feel guilty about killing a chicken or a cow for sustenance. That might change. There’s a vocal minority in the vegetarian/vegan community that is making some compelling arguments for us to stop killing other animals for food. Honestly, when it comes to this issue, I’m torn. On the one hand, it is causing the suffering and death of a sentient being for my own selfish reasons. On the other hand, I love bacon cheeseburgers and fried chicken. I’m willing to admit that I’m less than consistent on this issue, as I think MOST people would if they were honest with themselves. But murder is wrong, right? Yup. I think it’s safe to say that unlawful, or unjustifiable killing is “wrong.” When I say “wrong” I mean a compelling argument against it can be formed, such that the overwhelming majority of thinking people will agree that it’s immoral. Not objectively in a “Because God said so” way, but in a “we’ve all agreed that this makes logical sense” way. So yeah, it’s wrong. But again, why? Because it’s not beneficial. And worse than that, it’s harmful to the group as a whole. Now, I can hear you saying, “Well, it’s beneficial to ME if I want to kill Tim.” Fair enough. In the same way eating 6 gallons of ice cream for dinner would be benificial to you if you have a weakness for ice cream. In the short term, the ice cream will taste great, and you’ll be happy. So why doesn’t everyone just eat ice cream all the time? Simple. Because they’re not imbeciles, and they don’t need someone to tell them that eating that much ice cream will eventually have consequences. It tastes great till they’re sawing off your diabetic feet, and replacing your heart for the 18th time. Just because you WANT to do something doesn’t make it beneficial. And if something has a greater propensity for harm than benefit, the collective decides against it. You still might personally want to do it (remember that example we used of the priest getting his knob gobbled by the alter boys?) but the group as a whole thinks it’s a bad idea. So you can still DO it if you want, but then you run the risk of being found out and moved to a NEW church to molest DIFFERENT boys. Because, religiously speaking, that’s how we deal with immoral behavior. Remember that time a science teacher raped a child and got sent to teach at a different school? Yeah, me neither. But seriously, that’s why we have LAWS against murder, instead of just trusting that the God Jesus Bible Magic laws that are apparently inscribed on all our hearts will keep us safe. Because that would be stupid. It’s viewed as wrong because the collective has agreed that it isn’t beneficial, and actually harms the group as a whole. Not because your invisible sky wizard said so. Because again, that would be stupid. So what about Butchery? Glad you asked! Butchery is “wrong” also, but for different reasons than murder. Before you go trying to bring God up again, He has nothing to do with it, so settle down. Murder is a societal issue. If Tim and Bill want to kill each other while they’re alone, thousands of miles from civilization, where the law can’t touch them, then that’s entirely their business. I realize that some of you don't like that, and you need the feel-good bedtime story of a vengeful, judicious God sitting up in heaven, balancing the scales for every deed done on this planet in order to ensure fairness. Again, your wishful thinking has no place here. Unless you’ve come to the table with some hard evidence in your favor, you can just pack up that sack of nothing you’re trying to bargain with and fuck right off. Not interested. The problem with butchery is that it shows a fundamental flaw of logic and compassion. Remember those mirror neurons we talked about? Well, for someone to derive pleasure from the suffering of someone or something else shows that they’re not functioning properly. Try to follow me here, ok? If God made Albert Fish, and John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer, etc... (If you don’t know who the are already, only click on the links if you’re prepared to read some dark shit. Seriously, some of it is horrifying) and they got sexually aroused from killing people, necrophilia, blood, severed limbs, and the like, then why did the laws He wrote on their heart backfire? I mean, we could look at the correlation between serial killers and head injuries (the first link to come up after another one of those excruciating 45 second Google searches) or physical/psychological abuse and clearly show that these individuals are malfunctioning. That they’ve been damaged, and are no longer functioning properly. But then that would remove the need for a mystical super being to swoop in and save the day, so lets just sweep that evidence under the rug, amiright?

So when we see or hear something like this, part of our brain reacts to it on an instinctual level. We suffer when a member of our group suffers. And we can flip that switch simply by removing the other individual from our group. For example, we feel compassion for the soldier being gunned down in WW2. Unless that soldier is a Nazi. Then he’s not on our team, and it’s not so difficult to watch him get blown to bits. Same thing works with everything from different religions (crusades, jihad) political parties, and even different sports teams. We’re hardwired by evolution to support our group, and fuck the opposition. We can apply this brand of logic, and construct a working moral code for ourselves, our families, and our community. We do already. We just don’t recognize that we’re doing it. Some of us don't care enough to think about it and float through life like unthinking zombies. Some of us ponder and philosophize and read in an effort to better understand our choices, and see if we can make better ones. And then some of us just lazily plug God into every gap that comes our way and call it a day. After all, what’s the point of evidence if it doesn’t point to Jesus?

I might add more to this, I’m not sure. For now, I hope this has been at least somewhat educational to someone. Feel free to respond to it. I will reply to any and all legitimate criticisms.

Don't bother telling me that I shouldn't swear so much, or that I'm being unnecessarily hostile, or that I'm going to alienate people with my attitude. I don’t give a shit.

Thanks for reading! ~ Apostate Paul

#apologetics #morality #bible #religion #god #philosophy

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