Stop Deluding Yourself! Your Morals and Ideals have a price tag!

a reply to: Boadicea

No price that you could ever pay me to kill someone would ever compensate the cost to me of killing someone.

Ok would you do it for nothing...

A mercy killing

originally posted by: Borisbanger
a reply to: Boadicea

No price that you could ever pay me to kill someone would ever compensate the cost to me of killing someone.

Ok would you do it for nothing...

A mercy killing

Good question.

I honestly don't know.... so I guess that's a maybe. I'm specifically thinking of a situation in which someone is suffering, and there is ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of saving their life, then I might decide the cost to myself may be worth sparing that person unbearable suffering. In such a situation, I might consider it the better part of valor. I have had to make that decision for beloved pets, but it was never easy, and never without doubts.

I can say, however, based on personal experience, that I would not make a conscious decision to kill to save my own life. My efforts were and would be to stop the threat, understanding that death may be the result anyway. If it were my kids? Hmmmm... I'm not sure at what point instincts would take over reason, so I cannot really say.

Money, however, would not be a deciding factor. It wouldn't be any factor at all.

a reply to: Boadicea

Money, however, would not be a deciding factor. It wouldn't be any factor at all.

Ok you have the option of extinguishing a bomber about to kill a lot of people.
The humanists award you a prize in recognition that you didnt kill him [unlikely ]
and the authorities award you a prize that you did kill him [likely]
which charity would you give the money to

My price tag is a hundred million bucks. If you want me to lower my morals, just send a bank check to rickymouse in care of ATS.

I'm pretty sure I will not get the money so I am safe.

a reply to: Borisbanger

Let me clarify terms here:

A person and/or persons are set to detonate a bomb and I have the power to stop them, but my only power is to kill them, not stop them? So, for example, I have the opportunity to shoot their plane out of the sky, but no power to take control of the plane and divert them? Nor do I have time to evacuate their intended target? And, I'm assuming, I am not in the plane, but on the ground, so my life is not directly threatened by the destruction of the plane (else I wouldn't be able to receive a reward.)

Under those circumstances, assuming I did in fact have no other option, and assuming that I did in fact make that decision, I would donate whatever reward was offered to those who were suffering most at the hands of those I killed. So, for example, if it were ISIS terrorists, I would donate the money to Coptic Christians and/or Syrian Refugees, etc.

Did I understand your question correctly?

a reply to: ViciLaw

Sounds like you've really failed your own moral standard and now need to show that those failings are inherent in all of us.

No, the human race is not a disgraceful race. (neither are you, ).

Learning? yes. Error prone? yes. ( even repeating the same errors time after time.) We will eventually learn or we won't. That jury is still out.

You have learned from your failings and are, as a result, potentially stronger for those failings. Yes, better! So are we all.

That is the lesson of Religion, of Spirituality. Learn it!

a reply to: Boadicea

Yea I should have said a price on the terrorist head.
But it still doesnt make sense so I suck

Anyway as he failed I was betting you would give the money to his widow or family - yet another fail for me

a reply to: Borisbanger

No failure here!!! Those were good, thought provoking questions. And in any discussion of this kind, it's always important to remember that no matter how "good" or "righteous" one wants to be or thinks one is, there will always be bad people behaving badly and leaving good people no good options. It's easy to say "oh, I'd do this" or "I'd never do that" until you're actually in that position!

My answer was based on my understanding of the Law of Grace... In other words, to take a life is never a good thing. Ideally, no one should ever feel it necessary. But in the event that it happens, any future effort and/or reward should be directed toward correcting and rectifying the deed as best you can. If you don't, then it's all about the Law of Karma... and we know what karma is!

a reply to: ViciLaw

Humanity, is truly a saddening and disgraceful race.

generalizing in such a fashion as this is even a worse disgrace,

However carry on..

Stop the lies acting all right and saying your beliefs would never change, lets stop dreaming about being so righteous and down right 100% pure.

Do you think this of yourself?

Everyone and I mean EVERYONE! in this world has a Price Tag it just depends on the currency and the amount of 0's at the end.

Yes but you seem to see price a monetary concept where as in my situation, yes I do have a price to change my beliefs however that price has nothing to do with currency that the world banks might accept.

Many religious individuals will say something silly as "I will not fall to temptation", sorry to destroy your belief you would if someone offered you something you can not resist or enough 1's & 0's you would fold like a house of cards.

are you a religious person, you said you weren't when you started posting threads just recently so what does it matter to you what others with certain beliefs do?

Heck religion itself is based on temptation and that is the temptation of fear "Got to be afraid to donate that bling bling cha ching ching to be good and not go to hell".

Here is a link to wiki that defines religion


Religion

Yes some might act in the way you describe but that is not religion itself.

If you say I won't fold for money, how about women? power? self love? material possessions? Heck! many of you sell yourself for that opportunity to be on a music label or a paper cover.

None of the above,

No I sing in the shower and in the car however I wouldn't want others to hear my crap singing voice or have to see my face when they pic up the daily news.

The sooner humanity admits that we all have a price tag. The sooner we can begin to understand why money is such a dangerous creation.

I think I see where this is going, been done before though if I am correct in the direction its headed.

But hey! We can't live without money, so the system makes us evil. Right?

depends what you mean with "live", I think you mean being able to post on the net and have a dwelling like its considered normal in society, however you don't need any money to live, just knowledge.

Nope! You make the choice and the decision to have a certain price because no one is pure.

Yes I choose to live the way I do to live the way I do, that is pure and not a lie, if by pure you mean some sort religious concept which you implied is impure then I really don't understand your contradiction other than it being a contradiction.

Even I have a price. So.. What is your price to overlook their morals and ideals?

Great, how about taking the lead in your own thread and tell the readers what your price is before you ask others to say theirs.

How much would you ask for to take another living beings life?

Nothing, anothers life is not mine to take.

How much would it cost for you to commit the act of stealing?

depends on whats stolen and if you are caught or not, unless you mean on a deeper level on both, how much would it cost your soul? and what would be stolen, like perhaps another persons life.

Don't lie because there is a way to make anyone do anything for the right price!

Yes that goes both ways, however I seem to think you are just focusing on what would be considered as negative.

However I think you deluded into thinking humans have ever been pure, humans are a creation in a dualistic world so yes all will experience both sides of the spectrum at lest once in their lives.

originally posted by: ViciLaw

originally posted by: ObjectZero
a reply to: ViciLaw

Money is only one way to get people to do things. Most people that feel they can not be paid for can be threaten by means of harming them or others around them.

Like the saying goes "its the carrot or the stick".

Exactly! That's why I am tired of people saying they can not be bought to do something

Everyone has a price

You would be surprised what some are able to sacrifice,

You would be surprised that some just don't care enough or don't have the empathy other might and could watch or allow anything conceivable to the human mind to happen and simply not make it change their ways.

a reply to: Boadicea

and we know what karma is!

Yes .. A stitch up

You are too generous and too late I have already beaten my self up and I have yet 100 lines to do..
'I must not exceed my mental capacity'

a reply to: Borisbanger

Thank you... but don't give me too much credit!

And quit beating yourself up. Right now. We live and learn and when we know better we do better. Give yourself some credit for thinking beyond the shallow and obvious.

I appreciate it!!!

a reply to: InhaleExhale

I just wanted to tell you that was an awesome response, and I appreciate that you took the time to express yourself so thoroughly and comprehensively.

Thank you!

a reply to: ViciLaw

There is no material or abstract thing that I could be offered, which would induce me to alter my moral code, or act outside of it.

If someone kidnapped a member of my family, or a friend, and attempted to leverage them against my moral convictions, then surely I would seek to see that family member or friend right. But I would then hunt down and totally destroy the individual, and any organisation of which they were a part, responsible for that entrapment and kidnap, and seek to draw their shadowy and nefarious methods to public light.

But if we are talking about being offered money, or the company of the opposite sex, or booze and pharmaceuticals, or fame and fortune... No. My morals and ideals do not have a price tag. Material things of that nature have never interested me enough to change myself for them. There is perhaps one thing that could be leveraged against my morals, to induce me to do something which flies in the face of them. If a person or organisation told me, that in return for some immoral act on my part, they would see to it that overnight, everyone on the earth was made FUNCTIONALLY equal to everyone else, that they would end world government and globalisation, that they would immediately make all currencies worth the exact same amount, that they would make it so that no individual, young or old, white or black, of ANY faith, religion, creed, or political persuasion, would ever again be assaulted or treated differently by their societies, that all persons would become able to comfortably afford to live in a home, eat enough food, afford medicine, access medicine, and that the PEOPLE of every nation would forever run their nations, rather than relying on an "elected" body to do it for them, THAT is something which might get me to move outside my moral comfort zone.

Anything less than that is less than worthless to me anyway.

a reply to: Boadicea

And quit beating yourself up. Right now. We live and learn and when we know better we do better. Give yourself some credit for thinking beyond the shallow and obvious.

Im better now

OP

I believe that people who put themselves on the top of a power pyramid to get power and material wealth, causing suffering also get the bad karma trickling up. The more power you take from others the more bad karma to others.

Sooner or later that have to be re payed. I am not that stupid that I would sacrifice my future for the now/current.

Matthew 19:24

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

originally posted by: ViciLaw

Heck religion itself is based on temptation and that is the temptation of fear "Got to be afraid to donate that bling bling cha ching ching to be good and not go to hell".

Sorry I agree with what you say but your talking about one, maybe two religions here, Christianity and Islam. This is a HUGE over generalization.

a reply to: TrueBrit

But if we are talking about being offered money, or the company of the opposite sex, or booze and pharmaceuticals, or fame and fortune... No. My morals and ideals do not have a price tag

What about the whole lot..
This has become a game so Im going to lay it on nice and thick..

Interzone is a very moral organisation and would never ask anyone to do anything illegal. We work on the principal that people with out a 'price' just dont know there true worth #

Consider - the contention People who claim they cannot be bought have no real experience of money and therefore dont know what they are missing. We at Interzone specialize in enlightenment of the glittery kind

We start with - wine and dine /suit and boot you to look the part, boost your self esteem, Introduce you to glamorous people who flatter you from 24/7 and listen in awe to your trivia and laugh at all your fart jokes.

We show you how to make your 'grounded friends' envious - especially those successful b***rds that previously rub your nose in your failure and poverty.
You Meet celebrities get pictured in the society mags – snip
Cut to the point - you get used to the high life.
snip
-see where Im going –

now we introduce you to some of your 'new friends' and surprise surprise they have all had to do something distasteful and there really isnt anything to it - you are in good company

its a trivial thing hardly murder ..and even if it was the target deserves it – We even trot out a coke snorting priest that says so

Your target is a peado/cannibal/bubonic/computer virus spreading zombie puppy torturer ...and as it goes..multiple failed suicide - [ any dehumanizing rubbish will do..] so you see mr swift half - you are clearly performing a public service and doing your country a favor including the poor dear target. [que croc tears ]

I mean where would video games be without assassins

In conclusion. Im not sure whether I could resist

a reply to: Borisbanger

Here's the thing.

If I would not do it off my own back, you would not catch me doing it for the trappings of the high life, a lifestyle which I believe is impossible to attain by way of living a good and decent life. I am a locksmith. I provide physical security products and supply and fit them. The company I work for is run by my mother, and I live with her. I am thirty years old this month, and you could look at my life from outside it, and think "This guy, this guy right here, HE would be EASY to bribe.".

You could look at my habits, my drinking habits among others, my music preferences, and come to the same conclusion. But what none of those things will tell a person, is WHY I chose the life I have. When I was a kid, at school, I had opportunities to live a different life than the one I currently live. I could have easily fallen into a life of violence and thuggery, thievery and depravity. I could have become a drug dealer to gain status, I could have become a criminal about a thousand ways, and every time that possibility occurred to me, I felt physically sick. I was (and am) pretty much broke, my family were in chaos for various reasons, but just as much about money as anything else, and I was constantly beset by concern over that.

But that visceral reaction to the idea of doing ANYTHING for status or to improve the way people observed me, as a facade presented to the world, meant that those options were not really options for me, even though I could see that there was a way for me to potentially change my situation for the apparently better, by doing them, by changing who I was inside on a fundamental level to make that possible.

Because I knew them to be wrong, these things never appeared to be realistic options, because my reaction to them was so terrible. The trouble is, I have seen the effects of the sort of behaviours I have mentioned, these thoroughly criminal acts, weeping mothers on the television, destroyed by the death of their sons and daughters, neighbours out in the street mourning and consoling one another over the arson related deaths of a family on their road, fathers decrying drug dealers. I have been a victim of violence, I have been a victim of theft, both individual, and by the government, I have been marginalised, and because I have been a victim, I WILL fight for my right not to be again, and I will fight for others right not to be victimised, but... I cannot be a part of the problem, because every fibre of my being demands that I be part of the solution to it.

Now, the example you gave IS tricky. I have to say, if my son got accessed by the sort of person you describe, my morality would be out the window . One of the differences between me, and a fundamentalist nut case from the Middle East, aside from my religious convictions, is that where they falsely believe that their methods will take them to heaven, I know that if I kill a man, I will likely go to hell. However, in the scenario I referred to above, I would go to hell in a heartbeat to tear the face off ANYONE who even threatens, let alone assaults my son. I am not a perfect man. It would be safer for the scum in the world if I was never crossed by anyone the world would be better off without, because I cannot promise that I will find myself able to apply my morality when the safety of my family, my friends, my neighbours, and myself as a last minute consideration, is at such absolute risk.

But you could not get me to do an act of violence, by offering a reward to me personally. Never do for money, what you ought to do for free, that's my argument. I do not want everyone to know my name, I do not want everyone to treat me like a rock star, I do not want expensive clothes, and big cars, or to get into posh clubs, and even if I did, I would not want to get there by doing something wrong.

What I want, the things that consume my headspace, that make me wish that wishing was as powerful as the stories of childhood would have us believe, are entirely to do with improvements to the lives of innocent people, a closing of the wealth gap, laying the groundwork for a future which treats all people decently, leaves none by the wayside, forges paths to the stars and through the stars with technology, as opposed to killing one another with increasingly awful weapons, and a future in which people control governments, rather than in which governments control people.

Whether I leave a monied, well dressed corpse behind when I leave the mortal realm is not important to me. Not in the least.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Well there goes my Interzone Corp top sales spot aaaand the gold plated Winnebago with delux sandwich maker
Thanks a buncheroooonies "!!