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Power corrupts

S

Shake

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agnostic atheistic humanist
Not merely a truism, nor simply the beginning of one, but this is the title to a video series by the YouTuber known as Darkmatter2525. The series obviously deals with religion and if you've ever seen any of his content, then this also gives some backstory to a couple of the characters he uses in many of his videos (namely, God and Jeffrey). I wasn't quite sure where to put this post though, since it isn't really about religion and I didn't want to leave it in the Miscellaneous section. I felt this area was the most appropriate, though. Anyway, it's an excellent story, IMHO, which basically postulates that our universe is a simulation run by a real person, Yahweh, in some futuristic society as sort of a thesis or project for school. Yahweh has some issues in his own life, and there is some tampering with his project by a girl called Luci, which makes things interesting.

I've been a fan of Darkmatter2525 for a while now and am always eager to see new content by him. It takes a while because he does all the animations himself, for those not familiar with his work. So, I thought the above was all there was to that series, but now in the description to his latest video I read that this new one is, "Episode 1 of Season 2 of Power Corrupts." This one deals with justice, as he says in the description:
We feel rewarded when we punish others, which creates an easy shortcut from justice to depravity. We must be ever vigilant, lest we fall for this trap.
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Again, I don't know if anyone else here is familiar with Darkmatter2525 or is a fan. I would still highly recommend this series and his channel in general, especially if you like your Bible stories animated and with some humor thrown in. I'd be interested to hear what people think about this.

Note: There were 10 videos in the original series and after reviewing the post, I see that the playlist includes the later video to which I linked, but I've decided to keep the post as is.

Mods: feel free, of course, to move this if you come to the conclusion that it is better suited for another forum. Thanks.
 
sharon45 said:
We feel rewarded when we punish others
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Some people feel this way, yet a so-called just god should feel ashamed, because it reveals weakness.
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I think that's where people like Hitchens keyed in on the immorality of god. He creates imperfect creatures who he knows will fail, regardless of how you view the free will question, and then punishes them for behaving exactly how he knew they would. He created the evil, the temptations, as well as the propensity of some for evil and our inability to resist temptations. Above it all, it would be one thing if our punishments for our crimes would be finite, but no, he's going to punish us for eternity! At the moment, I think this is perhaps the biggest problem I have with Christianity.
 
+1 for darkmatter fandom. The guy has made some fantastic videos. My favourites of his are actually not the ones with God and Jeffrey (though those are good), but some isolated ones like the one he did about "rejecting God". Its a pretty astute observation he makes there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j8ZMMuu7MU
 
Shake said:
sharon45 said:
We feel rewarded when we punish others
Click to expand...
Some people feel this way, yet a so-called just god should feel ashamed, because it reveals weakness.
Click to expand...

I think that's where people like Hitchens keyed in on the immorality of god. He creates imperfect creatures who he knows will fail, regardless of how you view the free will question, and then punishes them for behaving exactly how he knew they would. He created the evil, the temptations, as well as the propensity of some for evil and our inability to resist temptations. Above it all, it would be one thing if our punishments for our crimes would be finite, but no, he's going to punish us for eternity! At the moment, I think this is perhaps the biggest problem I have with Christianity.
Click to expand...

And it gets even worse once you add the concepts of inherited original sin and of Christ and vicarious redemption. Not only are we punished for something he made us to do and knew we would do and we are powerless not to do, but he also punishes us for what our ancestors did, but will spare us if we accept and condone the torture and "sacrifice" of somebody else. Its FUBAR.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
+1 for darkmatter fandom. The guy has made some fantastic videos. My favourites of his are actually not the ones with God and Jeffrey (though those are good), but some isolated ones like the one he did about "rejecting God". Its a pretty astute observation he makes there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j8ZMMuu7MU
Click to expand...

Ah yes, I remember this one. Quality stuff, as usual. His second channel (Dark Antics) is also good.
 
Power does not corrupt. Lack of external criticism leads to poorer decisions over time.

If you lack of adequate external criticism includes lack of criticism of your moral decisions, then you will also get degradation of your moral decisions over time. Trump surrounds himself with yes men, so despite the fact that he has less power than many other men prior to last year, his decisions are much poorer.
 
Perhaps being in the position of surrounding yourself with yes men is a symptom of the process of corrosion of being in power.
 
DBT said:
Perhaps being in the position of surrounding yourself with yes men is a symptom of the process of corrosion of being in power.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine it's certainly a factor.
 
Capitalism is all about elevating the power of a few over the many.

In a huge corporation a tiny few have all power. Even the power to make politicians dance.

The essence of capitalism is corruption.
 
Calling criticism of a system where a tiny few have incredible power a bromide is not an argument. Especially when power corrupts.

If one cares about the continuation of human life it is important.

If all one cares about is one's tired old self then it may be a reasonable thing to think.
 
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