Utterly true. "Those who can make you believe absurdities can also make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire Sorry, no. Good people will do evil things when they are simply afraid. And of course evil people (occasionally) do good things.
Good people who do evil things... are not good people. Don't otherwise good people advocate religion and the fear implicit within it , because they are afraid.
Let me demonstrate your manipulation, here is what I said: "This is about dialogue, not debate. Cooperative dialogue, not win at all costs debate even if that means lying, manipulating and ignoring." You pick out the one word which sounds plausible to say "why should I do this" above. Why manipulate like that, why not say: Why should I dialogue with you? OR Why should I not win at all costs with you? OR Why should I not manipulate with you? OR Why should I not lie in our conversations? Etc ... The very fact that you asked the question, why should I cooperate pretty much says it all.
A contradiction is not an explanation. Unless you think you are God you have to prove your opinion as being most correct, or else it joins the cesspool that most come from.
Agreed! Absurdities like out of context manipulative half truths that only suit to deceive people of an accurate picture to then try and formulate an opinion out of.
Ricter ... the fear thing is legitimate angle but careful not to make it a one trick pony, to get tunnel vision, lose perspective, fail to see new info as it comes, etc. It's not the whole story even though I agree with it.
You first, then. Supply evidence for your assertion: "the natural human reaction is to be nice to each other, supportive, etc. War is not in human nature, it's... " If you're tempted to fall back on saying that this is Man's nature except for the presence of those concepts you mention, then please supply evidence that those concepts are not part of human nature.
Me first? That isn't how conversation works afaik. You made the point without explaining. I asked for an explanation and it's me first? When I receive your explanation for the point you made first then I gladly respond. After hearing your reasoning I can respond to it all coherently. Consider as your reply though, play fighting is seen commonly everywhere. There is some fun to that at certain times and different people take varying degrees of pleasure in it. The normal reaction is to suddenly stop when someone cries out in pain, you hear a thump or thud that sounds a bit too hard or similar. Why? This is in human nature to show concern, not be hypocritical, to think back to when you experienced pain and care that the other person may be currently. What is also in human nature is to be squeamish over not just hurting but killing other people. Post traumatic stress syndrome and soldiers looking at their children and never ceasing to remember the horrors of blowing up little children just like that, or sometimes forced to more systematically exterminate them (to use as polite language as I can); this and more points to the fact that war is 100% against human nature. It is only in the nature of the psychopathic (to generalize) and those whose environments have severely warped their personality (i.e. may appear psychopathic but are chemically different, can sympathize/empathize, etc, not born that way). I will leave the rest for later.
What!? You come up with this sort black-or-white thinking.... "Sorry, no. Good people will do evil things when they are simply afraid." ..... then accuse me of it ! Lol. According to what you said, it suggests Voltaire was on the mark. The fear factor which you raised, fear of death, fear of the sky monster, of course leads people to advocate the absurdity of religion, in which - fear - itself is implicit! Deal with the substance instead of just trying to project your own shortcomings onto others all the time. Is it a religious thing that makes you do that?