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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on October 24, 2012 at 9:37pm

Moderator's Note - 

This post was a complete mess, so I attempted to clean it up a bit by correcting several mistakes in spelling and grammar - but it is still very strange.  And I could not understand exactly what is being asked of us at the end, so I didn't know how to clarify that any better. I almost removed the post; but I'm a little curious as to what direction it might take, so I decided to let it stand, for now, to find out. 

One thing is for sure: If you're soon to be heading off to college as you claimed, Ian, then you need to seriously work on improving your writing skills or else you're going to fare very poorly, in everything.

{Except maybe art. lol} 

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Permalink Reply by Bart on October 25, 2012 at 1:25am

you want to know about what "morals" an atheist should have?

First of all, staying away from what is clearly evil is a great start for making your own morals. Soaking someone in petrol and then lighting them on fire is a good example of what NOT TO DO, obviously.

It get`s a bit harder when you get to questions as to whether or not you should help your friend move? Give money to beggars? Or if it`s right of me to me to emotionally manipulate teenagers. But, i would help my friend move, i wouldn`t give money to beggars (because our beggars have traveled all the way Romania for the purpose of begging here). And i would not manipulate teenagers emotionally for the hell of it, it`s a bad way of gaining good friends.

Basically, i think about what i actually want from my friends. If i help them move unconditionally, instead of messing with their brainz ("mmm, brainz" -zombie) there is a higher probability that my relationship with them will be good (or at least what i consider good). But then again, it might be that my friend is messing with my head just so i would help him move.

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Permalink Reply by Merity Z on October 25, 2012 at 4:39am

"Soaking someone in petrol and then lighting them on fire is a good example of what NOT TO DO, obviously."

 How do you define your moral compass? It may seem obvious in our society- even if only based on lawful repercussions- but when looking at morals without our societal frame of reference, the questions of exactly what defines the abstracts of good and bad come in to play.  I'm assuming you define your social interactions based on the behavioral model of tit-for-tat, where you cooperate with someone until they stab you in the back and then, after evening the score, you forgive them and go back to cooperating.  If this is the case then most of your morals stem from this, causing you not to set someone on fire if you yourself have not been wronged and you don't care to face the prison sentence.  

In Mr.Paintings case however, he does not operate on a tit for tat system, and doesn't care much for the model of a traditional moral compass, since It doesn't appear to have served him well in his conquest for power. So the question comes back... what is a moral line and where is that line crossed? 

Personally, I think it's just a scale of cause and effect.  What do you want to gain and what are you willing to lose? For a lot of people being sadistic makes them feel bad or empathetic, and it damages their self image and esteem as a reflection of a the way they fear they will be seen.  In the case of an amoral elitist, neither of these things are relevant, so it becomes more about the repercussions of losing power (social influence is based on they way people see you). This can easily be solved by making social manipulation less blatant, unless in the case of a sadist where you want your desired reaction to be visible.  In this case it's not entirely clear if Mr.Painting is just in disregard of others emotions and enjoys exercising power, or if he is truly sadistic and enjoys using this power for the sake of malicious intent.  In either case, it becomes about the individual situations in relation to the scale of cause and effect. 

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Permalink Reply by Nathaniel Mortazavi on October 27, 2012 at 12:58am

This post is riddled with sweeping statements and generous assumptions which, I believe, have little or no scientific or reasonable evidence to back them. This leads me to assume that your statement "I am a psychopath" is actually a label you have applied to yourself rather than a condition you have been medically diagnosed with. You make several references to psychopathic traits in an almost aspiring manner (in the same way a child tries to imitate a super hero they see on TV) which also leads me to the conclusion that your statement about being a psychopath isn't medical at all, and is in fact an attempt to appear powerful (as psychotic behaviour seems to be something you associate with power.) But hey, I could be wrong...
A few points:
Manipulating people does by no means make a person a psychopath.
Atheism does by no means cause a person to be without morals.
Being in an age range between 13-19 does by no means automatically make a person weak.
I could go on, but I'll address the matter you brought up in your final paragraph. You state that those who cannot defend themselves do not deserve defence. Out of curiosity, do you have any martial art or firearm training of any kind? 
As for drawing the line, what line are you actually referring to? You do not provide any context around the question. So please, elaborate.

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