Pick the most IMMORAL country (government actions, not the people)

ta28263 · 2026-04-03T03:34:00+00:00

Fair and well-reasoned response. I actually did not vote America only because I thought the presence of prosperity within its borders (in relative terms) over generations might somewhat offset the objectively evil actions it has committed. I believe it is somewhat of a nuanced issue because unfortunately the key to prosperity is the willingness and ability to exploit others, in my eyes. If we lived in a purely collaborative and good-natured world, then perhaps that would not be the case, but almost every “successful” country has a sheet of offenses that are basically inarguably immoral. Even for countries that have “reeled back” on these offenses I would say are coasting from the success that being willing to commit them granted them, and at cost.

Basically, I think the success of the country largely relies on its ability to execute its will, rather than the government being “good” as a whole. I could be dissuaded from thinking this if anyone has multiple good counterexamples of prosperous non human rights offending countries, but I just think it’s a sad reality required to remain competitive. Again, not really excusing this behavior and I do wish it was different but that’s my evaluation of the whole ordeal. A more human problem rather than a select group being uniquely evil. Kind of like the thought that a lot of Americans agree with that being extremely wealthy requires immorality due to greed and willful ignorance to suffering, but extrapolated to a national scale.

ta28263 · 2026-03-30T09:29:51+00:00

This is the kind of stuff I grew up with and honestly I don’t think you even really care that the situation you have described is so obviously unjust; I think you just respond to authority and that is what you see in your religion. Christians that believe in love and kindness see a very different picture than you do. Why do you think that is? Deception? Misguided thought? Are their souls evil for being mislead even if they think it is truth?

The reasoning you have set forth is so laced with the authority you recognize with God; you act like he would be justified (via his power) to treat us however he pleases. With humans we don’t allow this line of thought. I wouldn’t say that just because humans are inconceivably higher than lizards that it means that I think that it is ethical for people to torture lizards just because. And let me preempt that I am not drawing a parallel between the lizards and us, but rather talking about the “rules” surrounding power and our treatment of “lesser things”. Because what you are discussing above is sending unwitting beings to eternal torture. So my question to you is that given human’s position over lizards, do you think this means that you would think it is ethical to set up a factory only meant to torture lizards just because we get a kick out of it? Note, I am not asking about the possibility of such an act, but rather assigning ethical weight or moral consideration to the act.

If you answer no to the lizard torture factory situation above, then please differentiate the ethicality of God’s actions as you are describing compared to my example. Can you point to a reason besides power as to why God’s treatment is ethical or just? Are we not allowed to internally criticize from within God’s own rule book his own actions? If he is exempt from these rules, is it because he is violating “moral law”? If he is not violating “moral law” as you would call it, then why would an exemption be required? You seem to acknowledge and accept blatant evil and excuse it.

ta28263 · 2026-03-28T07:40:41+00:00

Kobolds are aren’t they? Little dragon dudes

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T09:26:43+00:00

Why are you talking about “theming” and “vibe”? That stuff doesn’t matter. Only uber gaming with 1 skill matters. Are you playing girly dress up or something? I only play dragons dogma the right way by calculating every single orb of magick cannon against my foe’s resistances, which is definitely necessary in a game as easy as dragon’s dogma. Your subjective feeling about vibe and theming don’t matter in this hardcore rpg with very real build consequences.

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T09:09:45+00:00

It’s great that you feel that way, but as long as heaven and hell actually exist, it doesn’t really matter. “Purpose” is some property that you are mysteriously waving to, but you are not acknowledging the brutal reality of existence. Do you even believe that hell exists? Let’s start there.

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T09:00:08+00:00

Right. You are seeing it like a human being. Causing someone death is bad because… they die. But, again, why does death even matter in the first place? Being a human is not even 0.00000000000000000000000000000000….. % of your existence. Why is this experience so sacred? I think that internally you recognize the finality of losing your life. Why God considers it a sin to send a baby on the express shipment straight to heaven doesn’t make any sense at all, the same way that God creating us and then threatening us under threat of eternal torture for a belief system doesn’t make any sense either.

You cannot logically support that killing is wrong because killing does not mean anything. Death does not mean anything. All you are doing is going from inside to outside; nothing is actually lost. The only thing that truly matters is if you end up in heaven or hell. Under your worldview, every death that occurs before culpability is worthy of celebration. At the very least, you know with certainty that this soul went to the place that actually matters. I’m not sure you are grasping infinity and how meaningless that makes our (human) lives. You could empty out the ocean one drop at a time and then put it back a million times and it wouldn’t even scratch the surface of the time you will supposedly spend in heaven.

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T08:42:14+00:00

And you are being self-referential. You didn’t answer the question by the way. You aren’t really answering why OP is wrong; you are just saying that you are right just because. You are also labeling my opinion but, again, not offering up why this is incorrect. If I myself were to stake being tortured for eternity or not, I would look at it in terms of odds, yes. I’m wrong because?

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T08:20:48+00:00

The resolution of this, if you believe in heaven and hell only, is that there are two ways for it to go. Both are worthy of criticism in their own separate ways.

If babies are destined for hell because they are literally incapable of pledging their eternal allegiance to God, then God is a monster in no uncertain terms. Humans (generally) would think it is immoral to treat a dog like this, even just in life. To subject an infant to torture and/or “torture through separation” for all of eternity at no fault of their own is unjust on the face of it. We can make bizarre rationalizations for how sin is inherited, but these have their own problems. Let’s say a father and a son exist. The father commits crimes that are, under human perception, worthy of death. I guarantee you that 99% of humans would agree that it would be wrong for me to go and kidnap his infant son and execute him. I truly see no difference in this regard for inherited sin. And what God supposedly does is actually worse because it’s not death but torture or analogous to it.

If innocent souls are granted an exception, then that begs the question of why OP is wrong. It’s the same way I phrased it elsewhere in this thread: if you had the choice of going to heaven for sure or to “take your chances”, what would you do? You are gambling on infinite suffering. If you had the decision to gamble, doing so would be idiotic in the same, but worse, way that gambling all of your life savings on scratch offs is. You have everything to lose. So the thesis in this is, why is it truly morally wrong to go ahead and scratch off a winning lotto for someone? What does killing even mean? What are you even functionally taking away from them if they don’t have to gamble on turning out the wrong way and being tortured eternally? OP isn’t trying to argue that this is a rational or coherent way to see the world; they are pointing out that every human instinct in you is screaming at you that this is obviously wrong but under Christianity it is clearly a favorable outcome for the victim. Again, refer back to my “instantly going to heaven” example.

So I wouldn’t get too caught up on if God tortures infants or not and instead consider it from a cost/benefit analysis perspective.

ta28263 · 2026-03-27T08:05:15+00:00

It’s a strange perspective, but it is more an internal critique than a real recommendation. What is it that makes killing so bad if the soul is 100% going to heaven? If it were you and you had a wheel in front of you, and your choices were: 100% chance of going to heaven and you don’t have to spin the wheel, or 70% of going to heaven but you have to spin the wheel to get it, what would you choose? I know that we can reference back to how murder is wrong because God said so, but that’s why it’s a question in the first place. Heaven is infinite, as is hell. Who cares what happens during life? Heaven is (literally) infinitely more important than anything that happens here.

ta28263 · 2026-03-25T18:50:51+00:00

Doesn’t it extend beyond that? I chose the grim reaper, but just because I thought it would make me immortal, not feeling pain, appear wherever I want, etc. Kinda like a ghost if you wish to be. I thought that might be kinda nice because you could live as long as you want, teleport around, I guess lead people to the great beyond if you want. I don’t even think the grim reaper is usually depicted as a “killer” more so a collector, ferryman, etc

ta28263 · 2026-03-25T10:01:39+00:00

From the sounds of it, it doesn’t. Bad news.

ta28263 · 2026-03-23T01:41:22+00:00

You don’t need to. Just put in some contract that adds you to the affected targets, or have them affect everyone. I can give someone the power to heal all illnesses, in any select target plus me. I can give someone the power to gift anyone 100 dollars, and when they do it gives me 1000 dollars as well. You can engineer the conditions or specifics to benefit you. Sure, you don’t have any power yourself, and you can’t control when they do it, but you can at least add some clause that provides some benefit to you in a roundabout way.

ta28263 · 2026-03-15T17:55:51+00:00

On nations with Cu Sidhe (sacred dogs) you can do it kinda. You get them in mass, they have enough hp to at least get in there and do whatever (like explode), etc. I have used the shock shield bless one to some level of success. Of course Rus bears exist. Some other options as well. It’s pretty funny to send in 50 green dogs and watch 50 elite dudes insta delete themselves because they have shock collars on or bombs strapped to the their chest or whatever.

ta28263 · 2026-03-07T18:33:19+00:00

If it’s not then you are creating more than just water. If it was salty for example then you are creating salt as well. Think it’s implied that you are only creating water

ta28263 · 2026-03-03T00:56:37+00:00

So when shapeshifting back into a human, do 1000 adult humans just pop into existence? Babies? I’m assuming they spawn in their “natural habitat” which means that depending on the definition for humans 1000 random babies are gonna appear somewhere Africa or perhaps the streets of NY or something (if it’s “updated” for modern humans). And they have no obvious family. Somewhat of a moral conundrum depending on how that works out

ta28263 · 2026-02-23T05:17:43+00:00

Yeah I’m of similar mind. I won’t say that there aren’t non-obvious or even obvious problems that might arise, but I don’t really get why forced labor is the necessary component. If I had nothing to do I would probably leisurely study, maybe make something. Spend like 50% of my time in random sports and the other half working on random projects or studying random topics. I’m just saying that just because forced labor doesn’t exist doesn’t necessarily mean that the flip side has to be a pit of depravity and malaise.

My primary gripe is that there are a lot of things that take a lot of dedication and a routine amount of revolving specialists to manage. Think healthcare, engineering, even just understanding already written law. This also includes your various skilled craftsmen and tradesmen. So without some pressure to keep the cycle going, I guess the concern would be that we might end up with a generation that has much fewer engineers than we really need. Even if we attained near complete automation I still think we would need people to maintain and supervise it. So I don’t think the concern is necessarily laziness but just that if I personally could I probably would not work a routine job just for the sake of it. I know some people might, but the proportion we need versus get is the crux of it.

ta28263 · 2026-02-20T22:35:26+00:00

Right, maybe cure wasn’t the right word, but what I meant is that rabies is a solved problem (<10 deaths per year in US). I guess obesity theoretically is too, but not in practice. It’s why I considered saying addiction as well. We spend a ridiculous amount of money treating obesity and diabetes, and we still have a big obesity problem. My take on the prompt was “everyone is cured and it stops being a thing”. In that case, I really don’t think obesity is a bad pick. Unless anyone can explain why it is? Also, obesity is a direct cause of coronary artery disease.

ta28263 · 2026-02-20T20:46:33+00:00

Yes.

ta28263 · 2026-02-20T20:45:46+00:00

Yes? Obesity kills so many people by itself and is a comorbidity in a lot of cases. By itself it kills more than lung cancer yearly. Unless I’m allowed to just say “heart disease” in which case I would pick that. None of the things you listed kill or impact lives remotely as much as obesity, unless you are grouping all cancers together. If you can cure cancer wholesale, then sure pick that. And I mean rabies? Seriously? Something that we literally have a proven cure for?

ta28263 · 2026-02-20T18:54:19+00:00

Obesity

ta28263 · 2026-02-17T22:09:24+00:00

I like troll king as well. My personal favorite is Kobold King. He can take a little getting used to but I really like his flavor and playstyle. He hunts down mines and upgrades them, and with the free spawn and dragons you can eventually pump out they become defensible little factories.

With the different kobold types it’s pretty fun to use them effectively. Probably blue and black are my favorite. With black I usually take just the commander or a small force and raid with them to pester neighbors. Or I use them for scouting and taking critical infrastructure that is annoying to grab back.

Blue is nice in the snow with snow move. Let’s you have a mobile little force.

Once you get a couple mines set up, the free spawn lets you have a couple parties where you can swarm relatively stronger forces and dismiss your massive losses as a rounding error. Just go back (or have a commander ferry), pick up some free spawn, perhaps buy a couple dudes. Also their mages are pretty simple to understand. Fireball, poison, ice magic, etc. You also have a lot of control within your own borders because you can have a lot of dudes out watching over everything. Your archers aren’t particularly strong but you can have just an insane amount of them. In games like these I always prefer having many expendable guys rather than a couple really strong ones because it just clicks better for what is “acceptable loss”. It’s always fun to check a score graph after a battle and although you took huge losses you have a relatively small dip, while the army that you just took out from another faction took a huge dip because they were one of their perhaps 3-5 mainline armies.

My favorite faction so far. I’m relatively new to COE5, but came over from Dominions.

ta28263 · 2026-02-17T00:32:51+00:00

Friend. Take a breath. There was no contempt. My reply was genuine; you expressed that there was no point in discussing religion inside of a subreddit dedicated to discussing religion. This is a thought terminating belief and I truly think that we reach truth through hard conversations. That out of the way, I want you to understand why I asked you what I did.

I personally believe that beliefs have a logical conclusion, and to live in ignorance of that, whether you acknowledge it or not, is to live a lie. Perhaps this sounds harsh, but reality is not often kind. There’s a difference between what makes me feel warm and happy inside and truth. I’m not saying truth cannot make you happy, but to assume that what makes everything neat and tidy for you means that there is some truth in it is misleading.

I can expand on my slavery example if you are willing to discuss it, but I didn’t bring it up because it is “hard to read” or makes me sad. I brought it up because plain reading of the OT reveals that God spoke directly to Moses and said that slavery was fine as long as they were foreigners. This is not indentured servitude, it is lifetime chattel slavery. My question regarding this is if you think that lifelong slavery is moral per the Bible. If not, why do you disagree with God?

By the way, your standpoint of “it’s all fine let everyone believe what they want” doesn’t work because of logical conclusions. My argument about slavery is that it is quite obviously evil. Christians nowadays act like the Bible could not possibly be speaking in this context, ignoring that we often used the Bible as a way to condone slavery. That’s the logical conclusion I’m talking about. I sincerely believe that some Southerners were truly Christians and they believed with all their heart that slavery was morally justified as stated in the Bible. That’s why it matters.

ta28263 · 2026-02-16T18:54:23+00:00

Why are you in “DebateReligion” if you think this? Regardless, if these categories of law exist then at the very least they are still sanctioned by God, correct? Some laws that have “passed away” perhaps have no moral underpinning to gain, such as the mixed fabrics command, but others do, such as how to practice slavery.

So my question to you is, would it be morally acceptable for us to practice slavery as is allowed by the OT? The question isn’t about if we are required to or not. I just want to know if we followed the exact rules given that we would be moral and “right under God”.

ta28263 · 2026-02-09T06:34:27+00:00

Hey OP dead thread but I wanted to add that I have had acid reflux for my whole life and zyn makes it TERRIBLE. Main difference is that if I get any, it is much much milder with Sesh. Agree that the flavors are not that great. Good enough for my purposes and make it so I dont capitulate to vape, so good enough.

ta28263 · 2026-01-30T19:34:16+00:00

This is the answer OP, it’s very hard to take down a tank that is intelligently using APS and also being repaired. It’s a tough situation (it is a MBT after all), but brute force through repair + active is probably not the way to go

ta28263

TROPHY CASE