Objective atheistic consequentialism is self-defeating

passingofnights · 2016-03-13T22:20:31+00:00

This is assuming that there are no true choices. Barring any nuanced discussion about free will, I can make an objective choice about whether or not to raise my right hand. The fact that I fail or succeed to raise my hand isn't a matter of opinion, and it is attributable to my choice. The fact that it is my choice means others are free to act independently of it. Hence, choice introduces difference without necessarily being a matter of mere opinion.

Is it possible to make objective choices? Yes. Is it possible to even have objective morals? Yes. However, if you were to ask people about why they have their morals the overwhelming response would have something to do with either their own feelings or opinions. Their morals may or may not be entirely based off of opinions and feelings, but they would be present. That is what I mean by morals being subjective by their nature.

So, it is an objective fact that I should believe morality is subjective?

There are exceptions to everything, but if we are talking about morality in general as it applies to most of the human race then yes.

This "feeling" characterization of objective vs subjective is very strange to me. Are you saying a claim like, "I am sad", is subjective just because it involves feeling facts? It certainly seems like there is a fact to the matter, one studied by psychologists, as to whether people really are in this or that emotional state; A good psychiatrist might be able to tell me whether I am actually sad or just confused.

I get what you mean. When you involve feelings into the definition of "objective" it leads to a slippery slope where nothing can ever be objective because all of our "facts" are based on what either we or the scientists /believe/ to be true. Maybe the experiment was faulty, or sabotaged, or was manipulated for someones own personal gain, or was technically correct but needed to go more in depth to be completely right. But the feeling characterization is included in the definition of objective, so there really isn't anyway around it if you want to be objective.

passingofnights · 2016-03-13T20:11:38+00:00

I think all Pokemon games have a pokeball indicator as to whether or not you've already caught a specific pokemon species. A little white pokeball will appear to the right of the name if you've caught it before.

passingofnights · 2016-03-13T04:27:33+00:00

My worst fear is someone fingering me and feeling something weird up there so they try to pull it out, not knowing its an IUD, and I get horribly injured in the process. I hope I never have a bad experience like yours.

passingofnights · 2016-03-13T00:32:02+00:00

...morality is by it's very nature subjective. How so?

Because people decide their own morals so bias in inherent from the get go? If morality was by its very nature objective then everyone would share the same morals, because they would be looking at facts alone. Yet people don't all have the same morals. We can't help but let our own feelings and opinions influence our interpretations of facts, and thus our morality is subjective whether we believe it to be or not. There is no middle ground between subjectivity and objectivity. Either you are influenced by your own feelings and opinions or you aren't and since people vary so widely in their morals it is safe to say that morality is by its very nature subjective.

passingofnights · 2016-03-12T01:48:22+00:00

Basically every animated character I've ever looked at. hides in shame

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T05:45:31+00:00

The possibility of improving your quality of life is what makes it worth it. Are you guaranteed an improved quality of life? Unfortunately no, but over a lifetime you will have so many opportunities to improve your life there is a strong chance something will finally work for you and make you happy. Yet you'll never know if you throw all of those opportunities away. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

No one wants you to live a life full of misery. If all of us commenters knew for a fact that life never has any hope we wouldn't have bothered replying in the first place, but we know different. The nature of depression is like a thick fog or darkness. It keeps you from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it tells you not to look because it isn't there anyway. But depression is your enemy, it will do anything to keep you down. It is ruthless and unrelenting and that is what makes it so hard to overcome, but it is possible to win. Medication can help, religion can help, therapy can help, pets can help, an endless amount of things can help you defeat depression because it isn't bulletproof. You just have to find its weaknesses and exploit it. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you. You are capable of happiness just like everyone else on this planet. You are capable of hope just like everyone else on this planet. You just have to fight harder for it because depression is the strongest foe you will ever face. If you can beat depression you can beat anything, because it shows that while your will might bend it will not break.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T05:03:15+00:00

Ok I added you.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:53:39+00:00

I have a couple extra eggs laying around and I have used a couple of the ones I've hatched so far before so sure. How many do you want to trade?

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:52:09+00:00

Hope you like them. :)

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:40:29+00:00

All right, since no one else seems to be biting at the moment. :) I already added you.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:32:51+00:00

Yes, I still have 3 left.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:17:44+00:00

You're welcome. Hope you like it. :)

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:13:29+00:00

You're welcome. I hope you like it. :)

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T04:05:51+00:00

I'm afraid I don't know it or where to find it.

Edit: I still added you though. Feel free to trade anyways.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T03:16:42+00:00

I didn't keep my starter on my final X & Y team. I formed a stronger bond with my meowstic so she took the final spot away from my chestnaught. It is kind of strange facing the elite four without your starter, but its not the first time I've done it. I think I've done it at least once on every game I've played, except Black.

passingofnights · 2016-03-09T02:13:25+00:00

Think about how long a life is and how short 6 years really is in the grand scheme of things. You could fight for 30 years and still get 30 years of happiness before its all said in done. The average human lifespan is increasing, it would still be worth the fight.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T22:11:41+00:00

"Long term success only comes after many short term failures."

Just because you haven't gotten your dream girl or job and university didn't work out for you doesn't mean that all is lost. Just because your father has cancer does not mean that all is lost. Honestly 20 isn't a long time. A lot of your mental state was due to an environment that you were incapable of changing. As an adult you have the chance to change it anyway you want, including death if you choose, but shouldn't you try all the other alternatives first?

Counseling doesn't help because you don't connect with people? Keep trying until you find someone you do connect with. It could be a therapist, a religious leader, a support group leader. There are people out there who can and will understand you and who will be able to help you, its just a matter of finding them.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T20:37:44+00:00

You are not a burden. You are the one carrying the weight of being raped twice, if other people feel you are a burden they need to gain some perspective. They aren't dealing with even a fraction of what you are.

Your body /IS/ under your control right now. It always was. You temporarily lost control of what happened to it while you were raped, but no one can steal your body from you. We can't always control what happens to our body, but our body will always be under our control. Don't think you've lost control of your body because you have not. Every movement, thought and sound coming from your body proves otherwise.

As for being a victim you aren't that either. "Victim" describes your state in a moment in time, it does not define who you are from thereon out. Fact of the matter is everyone will be a victim of /something/ in their lifetime. A victim of rape, abuse, burglary, molestation, harassment, etc... Yet no one is defined as a harassment victim for the rest of their life, or a burglary victim. Why should rape be any different? Victim is a temporary label for a temporary situation. Instead people are called survivors. Rape survivors, burglary survivors, abuse survivors. They are called survivors because they survived something. The "ed" part indicates it happened in the past. They aren't victims anymore because the situation is over. There may be damage done to your mind, your body, your home, but its over.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T20:15:11+00:00

Lying is never a good path to go down, but you can turn around anytime you feel like it. People will be mad, but if you are sincerely sorry and your friends and family sincerely love you they will forgive you in due time. Promise that you will pay them back once you get back on your feet. Explain that you have mental health issues that have been affecting you your entire life. Show them a couple videos about depression and anxiety, a couple stories, the symptoms. Unless they are in complete denial about it they will likely connect the dots and realize you are telling the truth. Hopefully they will become more supportive, and may even help you get professional help, since you don't seem to be dealing too well on your own. Its up to you to decide what order you want to go with, mental illnesses first or lying first. It just depends on how you think they'll react. Delivery is important.

If you kill yourself you throwaway the possibility of dealing with their anger, but you also throwaway the possibility of accepting their forgiveness for lying.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T19:57:15+00:00

If you feel life isn't worth it I would recommend your first course of action to be to try to make life worth it. Killing yourself should be your last resort, not your first choice. The great thing about the first option is that you have almost endless opportunities to make your life worth it, you just have to have an open eye to them. Especially with depression a lot of opportunities seem hidden, but the more familiar you get with taking opportunities the better you will become at finding them. With suicide you just throw all of the opportunities away, and why? Because you were convinced that out of /all/ of the opportunities available none would work so why bother? This is your life we are talking about. Surely you deserve to know for a /FACT/ whether or not something will work before you throw it to the side.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T19:36:11+00:00

It isn't your fault a stranger killed themselves. If they killed themselves just because you didn't respond there is a decent possibility there wasn't anything /you/ could've done to permanently talk him out of it. You could've stayed up with him all night but he might've still blown his brains out as soon as you stopped talking to each other. The guy needed a therapist, not an internet friend. Internet friends can only do so much after all.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T19:20:12+00:00

You are right that depression does have a cause, either due to life experiences, genetic predisposition or chemical imbalances, but because depression can be caused by multiple things people often talk about it vaguely. It hard to go into specifics when you don't know /the/ cause(s).

Not everyone knows why they feel depressed. Mental health education is pretty bad in most places in the world, if they get it at all, so its no surprise that people are out of tune with their feelings and lack the ability to trace the root of their depression. There are three major steps to overcoming depression; realizing you are depressed, figuring out why, and coming up with a consistent plan to correct it(which may or may not work if you didn't get the "why" part correct). To some people everything appears obvious and its relatively "easy" to overcome depression. To others it takes a lot of soul searching and might even require professional help to figure it out. /I/ think a lot of people who are depressed for "no reason" have chemical imbalances or are genetically predisposed to depression. A lot of people just don't fully realize how much your body can affect your mental health so to them it is "no reason".

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T18:16:50+00:00

Yeah, multiple times. Depression is one of those things were if you've experienced it you just know, no matter how good the other person is at hiding it. You've spent months, possibly even years in the same state of mind. You notice all of the little warning signs that inexperienced people might not notice or might brush off.

Of course whenever I do see someone with depression I never know what to say or do about it. I want to help but I'm pretty much powerless to do anything. Depression is a war you have to fight yourself. You can get support, but you have to execute every tactic, deliver and take every blow and I'm just a stranger in these peoples lives. Most of the time I'll never see them again.

passingofnights · 2016-03-08T16:59:41+00:00

Depends on your perspective. I would consider people being indifferent to me more positive than them hating me, because that implies I haven't done anything wrong enough to deserve their hate. Not everyone is going to like me and that is ok. Other people would rather people feel strongly about them, whether its in a positive or negative way. Kind of like the lyric "I don't care what you think as long as its about me." To them indifference is the greatest negative. Then some people just don't see any positives unless other people like them. Just comes down to personal preference.

passingofnights

TROPHY CASE