I have trouble reconciling someone being a good/moral person when killing for sex or to protect their business interests. They have to know that what they do is wrong/immoral. I can see a religious person do the same acts while still being convinced what they are doing is right/good.

Not nitpicking here, but wouldn't those greedy by nature people be considered bad people? I'm seriously not sure what we're calling good and bad here. Bible standards?

So.... true Scotsman?

No, they know what they are doing is wrong while religiously motivated people often believe what they are doing is right.

So... true scotsman.

Yeah I do think we need to have some definition set what's to be considered 'good' people before we can accept those in that list. Would that be a lack of killing-gene so to speak? Cause for good ol' mr Harisson to suddenly go all mr Hyde on his wife for sleeping with his brother or having bad business would rely on that gene as well. Being indoctrinated by religion for example, kind of resolves you of that that guilt/immoral feeling you should experience. You're not making the choice of stoning your cheating wife, you've been taught. You've been learned that's the way to go, nothing you can do about it. Act otherwise and burn in eternal flames. So if anything, you're a good boy for killing in the 2nd scenario. As with sex and business its more of a personal gain and, as such, could/should be considered bad people.

No, I have explained the difference.

Not in any meaningful way. If you really think so, then I can add red herring to the list.

Your inability to reconcile whether someone is a good person with behaviors you deem to be not-good has nothing to do with whether someone decides for themselves whether something behavior is right or wrong.

Here's the true scotsman part: No "good" person would ever do this, even if that person had met every standard for being a "good" person before this action was taken. He wasn't actually a good person. He was a bad person doing good the whole time.

The red herring has everything to do with comparing with the religiously motivated person. The religiously motivated person's motives do not make the non-religiously motivated person's actions better or worse. It ties back to the original statement, but it has no value here.

I define a good person as someone who wants to do good/act morally.
Now if that person commits an act such as murder and know that it is wrong, they stop being a good person. On the other hand if a person commits that same act but believes it to be right, I'd say they are still basically a good but misguided person.
People who kill for personal gain usually fall into the first category, people who are religiously motivated tend to fall into the second category.

You either are good or you're bad, right? If one could switch midway to being bad by doing ...., what are the requirements for one to 'stop being a bad person' and switch back to good?

I see nothing wrong in wanting sex or money.

Neither do I. However, I do think killing (etc.) for sex or money in itself is (morally) wrong.

I don't think religion in these matters is worse due how badly it can make people act, but because of how hardy it is. Religion however is almost universally elevated to be beyond reproach, inquiry, reason and observation. In addition it is usually part of religious doctrine that a) authority is granted via religiosity b) giving up on the doctrine is the worst sin imaginable.

Honorable exceptions apply. Some religions and sub-denominations place greater stock on reason and perspective than others.

That definition doesn't help at all. There are at least two problems with it.

1) Wanting to do good/act morally is an intellectual disposition. You're making judgments based on actions. "If this person *DID* this then..." In this sense, your definition is clearly insufficient for the situation you described. Your inability to reconcile your views with the person's actions has nothing to do with what someone wants to do.

2) The application of your attempted definition makes all people bad people, except for maybe those religiously motivated people. The reason is that everyone has performed an action that goes against what they think it is to do good/act morally. I suppose there might be a religious nutcase out there who truly does believe that every action he has taken in his entire life is good.

I guess this second one isn't a logical problem, but it would go against a characterization that I think you wouldn't approve of, which is that the only good people are religiously-motivated people. So it would be a kind of reductio ad absurdum. The conclusion you reach is in contradiction with your viewpoint that there are good people who aren't religious. (I'm assuming you hold such a view. I could be wrong, of course.)

That seems like a fairly contrived interpretation of Louis' statement. He clearly stated "an act such as murder", not "any isolated act I would object too". A better interpretation of Louis statement is that if a person commits something grievous, he is not a good person.

If you want to extrapolate common language statements to logic, translating it fairly is probably more helpful.

People do stuff. If someone doesn't value their freedom, their lives or the lives of others what argument are you going to make to persuade them to act the way you want them to act? You might not be able to, so you lock them up. But by locking them up are you not morally wrong, to them they see you as the evil ones. So to me morals is...so what?..the key here is about power over others once you get that you can do whatever you want. So people join together as a society/group this gives them to power to dominate over others who don't want to join in. In other words you must democratic or we will shoot you.

It's pretty much like what the Joker said in the Dark Knight.

Given that he's fighting an accusation of true scotsman, he actually needs to be very specific because that's the whole point of the true scotsman fallacy. We give one definition of "good" and then as soon as that's violated by an inconvenient example, we shift the definition to mean more than what we previously meant to be "good" to create a "truly good" category.

It still doesn't resolve the distinction provided in 1) which is that he's declaring his judgment of good based on his perception of the actions taken, whereas the definition provided indicates that the actor's perception is what matters.

Aaron, you have this tiresome tendency to argue semantics every chance you get. It's like you are trying to be become the ikestoys of RGT. If you don't want understand, that's fine and I am not going to indulge you further.

If you need to be inaccurate with language in order to hold beliefs that are false, that's fine with me. I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying you're completely wrong, and wrong on multiple levels.

By holding firm to the false dichotomy you've established, you create a situation in which you draw erroneous conclusions.

1) You've probably assumed honor killings are religious or failed to consider them at all. In fact, honor killings are deeply cultural, and not particularly religious. (That is to say, "religion" doesn't tell them killing is the appropriate choice.)

2) What is your view of the killing done by drug cartels and in situations such as gang violence? Do you believe that they really think it's wrong to kill someone who is trying to shut down their organization?

With your attempted definition, you've really failed to take into account the wide range in which people are motivated for action and the strong bias you have in your own views of what's good and bad. People are good or bad based on their motivations according to the definition, but you need to first decide that the action is bad enough for it to merit your consideration for determining whether someone is good or bad. It simply doesn't work.

I think this is pretty important to consider. In some moral/ethical systems smoking marijuana is more grievous than violence against women... personally I very strongly disagree and would never follow that societies standards of what are or are not "grievous" acts. In other cases I just go by the society standard by default or just follow what someone else says is ethical.

I think every one switches between their own individual and all other individual and societal moral/ethical systems from time to time.

What is the best way to determine which instances should be measured by which moral/ethical system? I would argue most people just follow whichever system they were told was correct for the longest period of time (e.g. there is a very strong correlation to a persons religion and to the religion they were told is correct by the parents/family/culture they grew up in).

"We can't know if religion makes people worse than they otherwise would be because we don't know what religion would be replaced with"

Yes... just like we don't know if being a drug addict is a bad thing for someone or not because if we got rid of the drugs we don't know what could be put in its place.

Oh wait, nobody in their ****ing right mind thinks that way and would unequivocally say being a drug addict makes someone a worse person than if they were not a drug addict.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ7kVawy684

Louis Cyphre,

I have a 44:36 min video of what I mean when say atheists worship the state, or when I compare the state to religion.

I beg you to watch, if not I will create new thread comparing the two.

Atheists worship the state? Really? Thats news to me. Mind telling me what tenet of atheism calls for worshipping the state?

I'm only making a comparison in the belief system. Government is believed to be good (when it can be shown that it is not) and government is to be believed without question. You as a single person can pray...I mean vote for change but good luck with that.

There is no comparison especially in the context of this thread. Religious people kill for religious reasons. There is nothing about atheism that says to worship government and even if somebody does, the government isnt sending them subliminal messages to kill and oppress people.

Sent from my SM-N910V