1) We're nothing more than meat machines, a bag of molecules; animals. We, like all life and the universe itself, are nothing more than the products of natural processes unguided by any transcendent God. Chance mutation after chance mutation has produced us – the ones fit and lucky enough to have had a series of ancestor organisms that survived long enough to reproduce. Our thoughts are nothing more than chemical reactions in our brains; our actions the result of those chemical reactions, the chemical reactions themselves being the result of natural processes extending back to when the universe somehow popped into existence from nothing (ah yes… because gravity exists).
2) Our actions are dooming the planet. The human population is growing too fast and causing climate change that will destroy the planet in a few decades.
Some of the very same people who have been loudly and stubbornly insistent that one or both of those are indisputable facts and that they should be taught unchallenged in academia and in the media are now mourning suicides and speaking out against bullying, telling people they shouldn't engage in either.
Why not? Why not bully? Why not commit suicide?
Who are you to judge? Who are you to say you're right and someone else is wrong? Don’t like bullying? Don't do it. Don't like suicide? Don't do it. Who are you to force your morality on someone else?
Isn't it survival of the fittest? Perhaps the bullies are more fit, and those who can't handle or deflect being bullied are not fit to survive.
If we're overpopulated, isn't it noble to commit suicide?
The planet is doomed, and the only way to make things better is through governments we know are ineffective.
The only reason to live it to be famous. Isn't that really what it is important? But how many people will ever be famous? Looks like the easiest way, ironically, is to kill yourself as a result of being bullied.
Clearly, some cultures have esteemed bullying and suicide; isn't it arrogant to say those cultures were wrong?
Shouldn't everyone be able to come up with their own concept of life? And if their concept of life is that it isn't wrong for them to kill themselves, especially if they are unhappy, who is anyone else to say otherwise? Their body, their choice.
Can public schools – or anyone else for that matter – tell anyone why they should not bully or commit suicide without invoking morality?
Now, I can tell someone why they should not bully and should not commit suicide, but my strongest argument against these things is ultimately based on God - someone dismissed by so many of the people speaking up about bullying and suicide as a "sky pixie".
So... all of you enlightened, freethinking brights, who are unencumbered by what you see as Dark Age superstition and ancient folly... and all of you people who do not want God or the Bible cited as an authority in public discourse...Why shouldn't someone bully? Why shouldn't someone commit suicide?
2) Our actions are dooming the planet. The human population is growing too fast and causing climate change that will destroy the planet in a few decades.
Some of the very same people who have been loudly and stubbornly insistent that one or both of those are indisputable facts and that they should be taught unchallenged in academia and in the media are now mourning suicides and speaking out against bullying, telling people they shouldn't engage in either.
Why not? Why not bully? Why not commit suicide?
Who are you to judge? Who are you to say you're right and someone else is wrong? Don’t like bullying? Don't do it. Don't like suicide? Don't do it. Who are you to force your morality on someone else?
Isn't it survival of the fittest? Perhaps the bullies are more fit, and those who can't handle or deflect being bullied are not fit to survive.
If we're overpopulated, isn't it noble to commit suicide?
The planet is doomed, and the only way to make things better is through governments we know are ineffective.
The only reason to live it to be famous. Isn't that really what it is important? But how many people will ever be famous? Looks like the easiest way, ironically, is to kill yourself as a result of being bullied.
Clearly, some cultures have esteemed bullying and suicide; isn't it arrogant to say those cultures were wrong?
Shouldn't everyone be able to come up with their own concept of life? And if their concept of life is that it isn't wrong for them to kill themselves, especially if they are unhappy, who is anyone else to say otherwise? Their body, their choice.
Can public schools – or anyone else for that matter – tell anyone why they should not bully or commit suicide without invoking morality?
Now, I can tell someone why they should not bully and should not commit suicide, but my strongest argument against these things is ultimately based on God - someone dismissed by so many of the people speaking up about bullying and suicide as a "sky pixie".
So... all of you enlightened, freethinking brights, who are unencumbered by what you see as Dark Age superstition and ancient folly... and all of you people who do not want God or the Bible cited as an authority in public discourse...Why shouldn't someone bully? Why shouldn't someone commit suicide?
Great job ... hopefully thought provoking to the unbeliever.
ReplyDeleteWho are you to judge? In that case why not throw away all morality. Morals exist for a simple reason - because we should not cause pointless and unnecessary suffering in others. To deny this is to deny any kind of morality - including the notion that YOU and your family should be treated kindly.
ReplyDeleteAlso, unless you are THE absolutely strongest and smartest person who will ever breathe oxygen within the next 130 years, the same logic you apply to the weak and the strong can and will eventually be applied to YOU. Be careful what you wish for, it can come back to bite you in the ass.
As for the rest of the weak vs strong and evolution stuff, two things people who hawk this consistently forget are
(a) The very ways in which we make a living have changed since the Stone Age. We do not have to fight off lions and tigers and bears oh my. We don't have to hunt our food. Today, anybody strong enough to pick up a sack of groceries can feed him or herself. We've got many other ways to increase our wealth and well-being that do not involve physical strength and assertiveness. Our 21st century society relies instead on individual creativity, innovation, and research. The Internet itself is proof of this.
(b) If we just throw aside the weak or otherwise unable to stand up against bullies, we'd find ourselves lacking in a lot of talented, valuable, and appreciated people (doctors, scientists, engineers, entertainers, artist, writers, etc.). The reason Nazi Germany lost the atom bomb race is precisely because they drove out people who either disagreed with them (Enrico Fermi) or were not "good enough" for them (Einstein himself was a Jew). Had Steven Hawking - called the most brilliant physicist since Einstein - lived in 1930s/40s Germany, he would NOT have survived the Nazi regime (wheelchair-bound, can't speak without modern technology, etc).
If you doubt me, then tell me why "unmanly" friendly ( or at least 'tolerant') regions like San Francisco, Seattle, Austin and Boston are the main sources of US tech innovation (not to mention some of the wealthiest cities on the planet) while so many other "manly"-oriented areas in the heartland are in the economic doghouse.
The rules of the evolutionary game have changed because the very ways in which humans can acquire resources and create wealth have changed. That very instinct that enabled us to survive in the wilderness 10,000 years ago is also a major thing that can choke off a society's prosperity - unless we learn how to question that contempt for weakness, then determine whether that contempt is appropriate or inappropriate.
As for the suicide issue itself:
ReplyDelete(a)Suicide causes untold grief for family and friends. If you commit suicide, your gain (whatever you consider that gain to be*) is their loss. This is effectively saying we shouldn't give a damn about the negative consequences our actions can (or even WILL) have on others. To make this claim is to render any ethical discussion meaningless - at least where it concerns consequences as painful as suicide or less so.
(b)If it is ok to commit actions that cause as much anguish as suicide would, then why not actions that cause less anguish? Examples are theft, assault, legal yet still unethical business acts, cheating on spouses and SOs, etc. It is difficult to see how an act can be bad if it did not cause some anguish in someone.
Having said this, I don't condemn people who are in SO much anguish that they find day-to-day living egrigiously painful, for perhaps in some circumstances (though not depression, as there are ways to treat it effectively these days) it may be that the person's life is not one a reasonable person would find worth continuing.
*I make an exception for physician-assisted suicide as permitted by Oregon state law (a good basis, IMO)