Leaving the community

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Hardly. A peaceful society requires that members of that society be safe
and that their property remains safe. If murder and theft are allowed,
the
outcome is assured: rampant violence, and an enormous waste as everyone
invests most of their resources trying to take what the other members of
society have, including their lives.

You don't need religion to justify rules against murder or theft.

No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.

Fortunately for me, and lots of other people, as humans we agree that being
happy is a good goal, and thus being peaceful and safe is also a good goal.
Very few people are happy when they are not safely at peace with other
humans.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, humanity can progress intellectually,
technologically, and economically fastest if we aren't wasting time trying
to kill each other.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.


If a belief in maximizing human happiness is not a religious belief, what is
it?

After all, if we are nothing but sacks of chemicals, doomed in the end to
become nothing but waste heat, why should we care what happens to us or to
anything else? Nothing we do makes any difference at all if we eventually
just become random ergs scattered throughout the universe.