Oh. My. God.
Published by Kyso Kisaen May 3rd, 2007 in HUH!?, Ze Goggles! Zey Do Nothing!From the Boundless blog conversation about Comfort’s impending jackassery:
Excellent question. Some argue that you can have morality without having any sort of “higher power”. Some may explain this in an evolutionary sort of way.
Let’s take this for an example: Rape. We all know it is “wrong”. But why? Let’s assume we didn’t have a commandment from God saying “Do not rape”. Why wouldn’t we allow it?
From an evolutionary standpoint rape would be perfectly permissible. After all, it’s about spreading your seed (passing your genes on) as much as possible. Survival of the fittest. Ducks have been known to gang rape, and there is even a species of insect which have pincer-like appendages whose apparently sole purpose is to hold the female from escaping while he impregnates her.
From the argument “Well, it’s not consenual” doesn’t hold much water either believe it or not. Taxes aren’t consenual. Neither are other forms of eminent domain. Yet there isn’t a wholesale view that taxes are “immoral”. On the flip side, we outlaw many actions that might very well be consensual. Prostitution, drug use, etc. So consent is not a reliable basis for morality either.
There are no words.
Yeah, and in some species, the female eats the male as he’s mating with her. Or afterwards if she’s hungry. Or if the sex wasn’t good. Appeals to “nature” are stupid.
Which Commandment is the rape one again? I’m always confusing that one with the one about gay people.
Riiiight. So why was that the first rape laws were property laws if there existed a moral imperative from the sky fairy not to rape?
But there isn’t a commandment from god saying “don’t rape”. Is there? Sure there are laws against adultery but that doesn’t stop a man raping his wife.
And I like how though non-theists do have morals, and even argue in favour of them, because Rob can’t compute why people without fear of sky gods would have any morals, then they can’t possibly really have them, therefore that doesn’t count.
My question is, now that this guy has had it pointed out to him (by other Boundless commenters, no less) that there is in fact no specific God-given commandment to not rape, what’s holding him back? Is he reading those comments and thinking, “Hey, I could’ve been doin’ it this whole time!”
Or does he have to go to that wishy-washy Jesus and his “do unto others” crap and actually think a bit?
I mean, he wasn’t ok with rape when he thought it was on the list of don’ts, but since it’s not, then it’s ok, right? Is your morality more moral than mine because you based on what you mistakenly but totally sincerely thought God might have said had you actually bothered to read the thing?
Survey sez?
but, but, but … oh this is so stupid in so many different directions at once. To pick one that noone else has seized on yet, Taxes.
Taxes -are- consensual, if you’re living in a democratic system. You vote for your representatives, they elect what & whether to tax -as-your-representatives- . Suck it up. If you want a more direct voice in taxes, move to somewhere that has an Athenian democracy, or run for Congress.
For what it’s worth, consent -is- an excellent basis for morality, some would say the only reasonable basis for it. Banning prostitution and drug use is not about morality, but about legality (i.e. pragmatic, not moral), which is not the same thing, at all. (I’ll leave the argument for how much choice/consent prostitutes have, for someone else, thank’ee).
Shorter post: women are incubators, and I should be able to grab whichever one I want, but the law won’t let me! Waaaaahhhhhh!
Wow. I have a few issues with the writer quoted here:
1)
Morals don’t come from God, they come from men who say they speak for God. Whether what your minister, or pope, or the writing of the apostle Paul tells you is the word of God is an open question. A bunch of people in an organized group agree on certain rules which they call morals and to which they ascribe the will of God, who created us and everything.
If you take God out of that, you only take out what is asserted but not proven to be the basis for those morals; what remains, bunch of people in an organized group (called a church or a denomination or a religion) agreeing to those rules, is still valid enough. A bunch of people agreeing to live in accordance with some rules is the way things are done.
2)
Violence, as defined by Ghandi as any attempt to impose your will on another person, has easy-to-see, negative consequences in most cases. One person may be bigger and stronger than another, but the weaker one probably has friends who will want revenge.
(Also, not all societies have been as rape-friendly as this one.)
You don’t need God-based-morality to know that rape is wrong, just awareness that people tend to protect one another and concern for one’s own well-being. There’s plenty of evidence that people have both.
3)
Regarding rape as a way to spread genes around, it’s hard enough for women who want to get pregnant to get pregnant. I imagine that consensual sex is physiologically more effective a way to get sperm to egg, and that female orgasm helps, too. So rape doesn’t make sense that way, either.
So this person considers themselves more moral than I, yet needs to be told not to rape and/or fear some uber punishment for the act? Fuckin’ crazy.
Regarding rape as a way to spread genes around, it’s hard enough for women who want to get pregnant to get pregnant. I imagine that consensual sex is physiologically more effective a way to get sperm to egg, and that female orgasm helps, too. So rape doesn’t make sense that way, either.
If you want a really harsh, caveman-with-the-club set of rules, then abortificants and infanticide give the incubator the final say if your genes live long enough to reproduce, which is how you win points, evolution-wise. You do not neccissarily gain unless you stick around long enough to make it worth her while, resource-wise.
It was a harsh world back when we had more in common with the monkeys and the preying mantises. There’s a reason we decided to codify things a bit. These guys seem to think that women everywhere always had a “ooh, look at the baaay-beee” gene that means that as soon as sperm hits egg, they win. But really, that is an attitude and a luxury. I think many guys who harbor attitudes like that of our ‘christian’ friend would be suprised what women in hopeless situations are capable of.
So this person considers themselves more moral than I, yet needs to be told not to rape and/or fear some uber punishment for the act? Fuckin’ crazy.
Yeah, Frank, that’s about the size of it. Fuckin’ Christians.
And, y’know, if you’re a Christian, you putative reader, and you want to take offense at me saying something like ‘fuckin’ Christians’ because you feel that it doesn’t apply to you — too bad. Go do something about all this bullshit that’s going on in your name, and then come back and talk to me about what a bad person I am for making you feel like I blame you for the actions of your co-religionists.
I would just like to add my 2¢ that THERE IS INDEED NO COMMANDMENT in the Bible which specifically forbids rape. There ARE 619 COMMANDMENTS (not Ten!), all supposedly of equal merit; ONE of which is THOU SHALT NOT LOAN MONEY AT INTEREST. That is A good one to bring up when Bible-Beaters are Hating on the Gays…it is EQUALLY IMPORTANT, after all!
Why aren’t all the GOOD CHristians coming out against against TEH BANKS!! and TEH CREDIT CARD COMPANIES!!!
(crickets)
Aside form the obvious jackassery in the post, Comfort apparently has no idea how evolution works, and would do well to read up on the large number of geniuses whose life has been spent determining the evolutionary and biological bases for morality, notably Steven Pinker.
“Comfort apparently has no idea how evolution works, ”
Well, Comfort doesn’t believe in evolution at all, so that makes sense.
If you’re going to attack a concept, it would make sense to understand it, no? Isn’t that something like attacking the theory of gravity on the grounds that it’s “turtles all the way down”?
Shorter: morons.
“If you’re going to attack a concept, it would make sense to understand it, no?”
No. For any kind of fundy, understanding something is dangerous. Much better to pull a Dr. Zaius - close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and actively work to destroy thought and reason lest someone see through your skimpy veil of faith, belief, and mindless authoritarianism…
this is a bit tangential, but I took a class in my honors program in college where one week, we spent our class time discussing, debating, and subsequently demolishing the idea that rape is a viable reproductive strategy in humans, speaking evolutionarily*.
It all boiled down to two words: social animals. Caverapist rapes Cavevictim and none of the other cavewomen will mate with him voluntarily. He’s also not around to help raise any potential children, making them more vulnerable. That, and the woman has an evolutionary incentive to kill off any offspring, because why would you want to invest resources in genes that aren’t going to be very successful in the next generation (because of the first 2 points).
Now obviously, it doesn’t literally work like that, but it’s plenty good enough to crush the ‘rape is a mating strategy’ argument on strict evo-psych grounds.
*yes, one of the privileges of being an editor is getting to make up words. you can’t break the rules until you prove you know them and all that.
Yeah, and in some species, the female eats the male as he’s mating with her. Or afterwards if… the sex wasn’t good.
And to think that the humans have had this one backwards all along.
(mm, bad sex puns. that’s what i get for being up early on a saturday)