The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by William Lexner:

Fidelio:

Much better flame.

Humanism is, IMO, all about the search for human compassion for one another. Often times other forms of thought are grouped under the banner of humanism by those who want to justify humanism. Ideas must be allowed to exist in vacuum to be honestly judged, as opposed to pork barrelled onto some mythical ideal beast.

Modern Humanism is defined by a proponent as "a naturalistic philosophy that rejects all supernaturalism and relies primarily upon reason and science, democracy and human compassion."

I say bullshit. It merely is a cry for human compassion.

Science, Democracy, and Atheism can exist on their own as ideas, and so can compassion. To artificially group them together (and I state artificially because it is neither a natural nor logical grouping) is intellectual delusion.

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Xopher said:

"I refer you back to my comment, where I said that killing another human being might be LESS wrong than the alternative. That is to say, people have a moral obligation (as you put it) to make the best choices they can, even when all the possible choices involve doing SOMETHING wrong."

I refuse to accept your premise that it is always wrong to kill. I refuse to accept that it is the 'lesser' of two evils. The rancid moral idealism that believes that defending your own life and that of your family by killing another human being is in some way wrong is incomprehensible.

J H Woodyatt:

There's a self-righteous and indignant logical fallacy. You should ashamed of yourself.

Fidelio:

-Perhaps you should look up the word 'comment.' I did not say 'the most unintelligible hodge-podge of a sentence ever thunk up.'

-I believe that humanism is a lie. I do not believe it can exist on any large scale (outside of a family unit, group of friends, or cult setting) because it is at odds with the very nature of us. (Yes, I do indeed find this sad.)

-I don't claim anyone here is worthless or despicable. I do however find it despicable when a person, devoid of any lucid argument, invents statements to attack. I'm giving you plenty to argue against here, Fidelio, so please don't come across with some fabrication of me hating dogs and goldfish next.

-'Western Humanist Tradition' I suppose this is a nice banner under which you can group any positive outcome of the past 400 years, however it's absurd.

The Constitution was written by a slave owner. You claim him as a humanist?

Personal computers were developed to make money... call it humanist if you like, but I see it as capitalism.

Now you believe scientific method is a humanist ideal? Are you kidding? Where is the correllation?

Rights and Laws existed long before any so-called 'Western Humanist Tradition.'

Your post is a half-decent flame, but as far as an argument it's frail and somewhat silly.

Xopher said: "I believe that it is ALWAYS, without exception, wrong to kill a human being."

This is the most ludicrous comment imaginable. I could list a few thousand examples of instances where one would have the moral obligation to take anothers life, but anyone who would spew such inane rubbish is certainly not going to thoughtfully consider reality.

A society does not exist to have a higher idealism than the individual. A society exists only to protect it's citizenry. (This is the reason we banded together in the first place.... for protection) As such, our first obligation is always to protect our citizenry from all threats, foreign and domestic.

As for the woman who called me a troll.... sometimes I think everyone must be out of their minds or posing as some bullshit humanist, because sane human beings could not possibly believe what is being spouted.... but I try to accept that these are genuine feelings.

I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same.

Aquila: I never stated that countries with the death penalty had lower rates of murder than those without. Muder rates depend on many factors.

Robert Rossney: When you make absolutely inane and ludicrous strawmen arguments like 'euthanize everyone' you make it impossible for anyone to take your arguments seriously.

Epacris: We must trust in our system and work harder at assuring that we never let the innocent be punished. Mistakes do happen in life, and they are lamentable.

Todd Larason: That is a link to a nutjob website. For the sake of argument, I'll allow that it's truthfull and not skewed.

Bud Welch is a buffoon. Being an idiot is not a crime, unfortunately.

Marna: This is the real world, and you're talking about ghosts. I really hope you don't vote.

Zander: Murders would still happen, yes.....but there is no way to count how many times a person has said to themselve's "It's just not worth it," and put the gun down. To try to use extrapolation or recorded murder rates from medieval times to get a realistic idea of these numbers is obtuse and delusional.

Vera Nazarian:

1. Carroll doesn't make an argument here. If you're referring to elsewhere, please link.

2. What society is based on humanism? Which society purports to value humanism above all else? I like your fiction, Vera, so I'm sorely tempted to cut you some slack, but that statement is absurd.

Francis: You made a decent argument until the end there....what's up with the extension of the argument? How does removing a murderer from the gene pool correlate with banning firearms or motor vehicles? (It's not that I don't understand what you're trying to say....I do. I simply think it's a silly deduction)

No one who purports to be against the death penalty would state the same view if it were their child who had been murdered.

If the death penalty prevents one murder, then it is unconscionable to refrain from using it.

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