Euthanasia and Bestiality: Two Fun Topics
I recently came across an… interesting blog that is written by a supposed proponent of incest, bestiality, and the killing of so-called “useless” members of society (which he mislabeled euthanasia). For the most part, the posts I read seem to be a devil’s advocate look at the extremes of human rights and freedoms that our society will likely tackle in the next few decades, though sometimes — like, say, when he’s writing that children from first cousins are not particularly at risk for defects, therefore direct sibling incest is equally acceptable, genetically speaking — I’m not so sure.
Here’s a post, with some editing and spelling liberties taken on my part, asking for some arguments on moral relativism, which are especially targeted at an atheist reader.
Today I will play the role of an atheist who subscribes to humanism and the relative nature of morality. Shall we begin?
THESE ARE MY TWO CORE BELIEFS:
1. I believe that certain nonproductive members of society – i.e. the terminally and painfully sick, unemployed and alcohol-addicted street vagrants, serial criminals, and those too old to contribute anything meaningful - should be euthanized for the greater of good of society and mankind.
Resources that they consume can find much better use in advancing civilization and the happiness of other (and more) people. The good and survival of the human species takes precedence over selfish and petty individual needs.
2. I believe that bestiality as a sexual choice should be given the same legal rights and social respect as heterosexual and homosexual human-human relationships.
I am a practicing zoophile who regularly engages in group sex with my fully-mature rottweilers (both male and female) who willingly and often actively reciprocate the intimate eroticity.
We all enjoy it immensely, so what’s wrong with it? For some reason, most people – even the supposedly enlightened individuals at PFLAG – think my sexual choice is disgusting, morally repugnant and unnatural. To me it’s incomprehensible and inexplicable why.
Now please tell me why my stance is MORALLY WRONG from a atheistic, humanist point of view.
Quotes from the Bible or other holy scriptures will not be accepted. Arguments that some god or another forbids it will similarly be ignored. As a atheist, I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY RELIGION OR PHILOSOPHY BASED ARGUMENTS.
I welcome and eagerly await comments which attempt to persuade me that somehow, my beliefs and practices are fundamentally wrong from a relativistic, humanist, liberal and pluralistic point of view.
Convince me.
Usually, when I read stuff like this on the Internet I just sigh and move along, but this time I couldn’t resist responding. What follows is a comment I posted on that blog in its entirety. Normally, I also don’t repost comments I write on other blogs on this site, but this one is fairly well written and much longer than I originally anticipated. Plus I haven’t posted in a while so I needed to put something up.
First of all, you say that you reject any philosophy based reasoning which is possibly the stupidest thing anyone has ever said. Philosophy strives to create logically valid reasoning. If the premises of that logic are true, then the reasoning is also true so to say you reject philosophy (but accept “atheistic” arguments which wouldn’t exist without philosophy) is really dumb.
As for your first point, there’s a difference between euthanasia and what you propose. Euthanasia is about ending the suffering of people who wish death. You’re talking about killing people against their will because they are no longer useful to society. That’s an egregious attack on the freedoms of people. Not only that but you then need to define usefulness to society. What if someone is intelligent, went through university and even went through medical school and graduated at the top of their class. But once that was all done they decided to make crappy clay sculptures that everyone agrees are not only a terrible waste of their talents but also just in general terrible. He is no longer useful to society and was even a burden on society by going through an unused education process so your proposal would be to kill him, but hopefully you can see that that is no more than cold blooded murder.
Secondly, regarding bestiality. I have a very specific opinion about sex: you don’t do it without consent. Until animals can be proven to be sentient and are capable of communicating with humans their thoughts and opinions, you cannot have sex with one without it being rape. If you want to stick your ass up in the air and wait for a dog to figure out that you want it to fuck you, well that’s fine by me, but you can’t do anything to the dog or any animal because you can’t reliably convince me that it’s consensual.
One final note. Your basic argument seems to be that without God all morality is completely relative. That may be true, but it’s a problem philosophers have discussed for millennia without making any real headway, so you shouldn’t assume your stance to be true. For one thing, morality may be a genetic trait, or a part of the structure of our brain. If those, or something similar, are true then there very well may be an absolute moral code built into us, or at least some moral absolutes from which we can extrapolate the rest. Regardless, a godless world is not necessarily a morally relative world. Furthermore, a morally relative world is not necessarily a world where you can do anything. Morality is a societal construct because morality defines the behaviour between members of a society. Which means the members of society need to agree on the basic terms. Agreeing on the basic terms of a morality, relative or not, will lead to certain limitations. Always.
(Before anyone starts accusing me of teaching Parrots to say “fuck me good” and then going wild, I should say that I personally would never fuck an animal other than a human; I’m just that kind of guy. But I also don’t think that I have the right to tell people who have those bizarre desires, along with animals intelligent enough to have and communicate those desires, that they shouldn’t do that funky business.)
So there’s my thoughts on those particularly grimy and unpalatable. I hope that I’ve both made some sense and also not completely grossed the fuck out everybody reading this.
P.S.: After having looked at a few other posts on the blog, it seems pretty clear that this guy is either bipolar and has two distinctly opposite personalities or he’s a racist neocon who likes to argue that atheism leads to rampant dog fucking and murdering by playing the part of a crazy atheist who thrives on dog fucking and murdering. C’est la vie, but maybe my arguments manage to convince him that supporting someone’s right to do fucked up shit is not the same as wanting to do fucked up shit.
7 Comments So Far
Dude, you have any grasp of the concept of sarcasm?
As for being a ‘racist neocon’, I bet you’re referring to my latest post which is about Obama and racism, which would have been the first thing you see when you head to my main page.
Which is also done is a sarcastic tone, which you also might not have caught, hence leading to the apprehension that I am a racist.
You’re wrong on that count. Not being Caucasian, I am automatically exempt from the possibility of being racist by the same liberal media rules that portray blacks voting for Obama because he is black as ‘intelligent’ and whites not voting for Obama because he’s a flaming liberal as ‘racist bigots’.
But yes, I am a neocon. According to some, the leading neocon of my region!
And dude, srsly…
Today I will play the role of an atheist who subscribes to humanism and the relative nature of morality. Shall we begin?
Scott, I got your sarcastic tone; however, your sarcastic tone was not refuting your racism, it supported it. Add on that you used guilt by association on Obama numerous times, by referencing the Nation of Islam and Rev. Wright, it’s pretty clear you are not “for” Obama.
As for your second comment, I didn’t read that until afterward. Sorry if, when you have a small preface followed by huge bold text, I skim over the top.
“You’re wrong on that count. Not being Caucasian, I am automatically exempt from the possibility of being racist by the same liberal media rules that portray blacks voting for Obama because he is black as ‘intelligent’ and whites not voting for Obama because he’s a flaming liberal as ‘racist bigots’.”
Once again, that rapier-like wit manages to deftly intertwine absurd exaggeration and poor logic. When someone calls Obama a “half-breed” or says they’ll never vote for him “because he’s black” that pretty much means they’re racist. And comparing a black guy to a monkey is at the very least racially charged due to the centuries of comparisons and accusations of being “less evolved.” The term “porch monkey” isn’t popular anymore for a reason.
Tell me how I any part of my post showed my inherent racist streak. I defy you to.
If I am absurd, your double-standards defy expectations that atheists are famously logical.
Why is it that when a White says “I won’t vote Obama because he’s Black” that White is a racist…
But when a Black says “I will vote Obama because he’s Black” not held to the same standard?
Then again, you likely only get your information from liberal media. So you can’t be blamed there.
So why is sculpting Bush as a chimpanzee (not just putting his name next to a cartoon monkey) or calling Condoleeza Rice a ‘house n*gga’ not decried by the liberal media?
That would be racist. However, while Barack Obama has a majority of the Black vote now, it is not because he is black. When the campaigns started he was losing among black voters because of the Clintons’ high regard in those communities. Barack Obama won those votes through his positions and his campaigning, not through his race.
It’s not being decried because in the case of Bush it’s not a racial attack, it’s an attack on his level of intelligence. And the Condoleeza Rice comic is not decried by the “liberal media” because it’s an attack on propaganda and “re-education” not an attack on Condoleeza Rice or her race.
My my my, how you spin things.
So let me get this straight… I cannot legally mock someone based on race, but I can legally mock them based on my belief that they are unintelligent?
And I am allowed to call Obama a n*gga, as long as I couple it to criticism of his taxation policies?
I never said anything about legality. Either attack is legal. But one is racist and the other isn’t.
As for the Condoleeza Rice thing, the term was not being used in an accusatory note in that comic. It was not calling Condoleeza Rice a nigger. So calling Obama a nigger and then through some of your patented “logic” connecting that to taxation policies is not equivalent. That doesn’t mean the word nigger can never be uttered. I’m not one of the people who believe that any word or phrase should be banned from speech. The word nigger is often used in social commentaries attacking the racism imbued by the word. Confronting racism straight on is not racist, nor is the mere utterance of the term. However, using the term as a racially charged attack is racist. Hopefully, you can make the distinction between the two and are merely feigning ignorance for the sake of your argument.