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Morals, athiests and online voting

Is it moral to vote out of state repeatedly in order to stack a pole to get a secular result?

Interesting discussion -

The pole isn't particularly important in the bigger scheme of things - and it would seem that repeated voting isn't illegal - the site is perhaps designed - like most things in our society - to be an honesty based system.

The organisers would perhaps organise a different way to do it - but perhaps it isn't an issue to vote repeatedly. If it was there would be some way of registration or cookies - which there doesn't seem to be.

It could be set up like big brother or other reality tv voting systems where you can vote as many times as you wish.

Why get all 'holier than thou' about it?

I think we need to use our rational thinking in this case - go through the facts of the case, before condemning others of immoral actions. What's wrong with some reasoning - rather than public shaming?

I'm for the Naturalistic attitude of compassion due to our deterministic universe.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 12:08am

This discussion also highlights the issue of atheists being seen as immoral, that was brought up recently in another discussion.

Perhaps it's immoral to jump in and use public humiliation to shame a person into changing their behaviour?

Perhaps more compassion and reasoning would be an act of greater morality?

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on July 12, 2011 at 12:52am

Online polls are asking to be flooded, hacked, maimed, etc. That's what they get for trying to get a pulse on reality.

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on July 12, 2011 at 12:53am

Online polls are asking to be flooded, hacked, maimed, etc. That's what they get for trying to get a pulse on reality without going through the long, arduous process that people like Gallup do.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 12:43pm

Because an online poll literally asking to be used by everyone (or at least everyone from a specific state), repeatedly, is anything like being out early in the morning. Right.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 1:53am

LOL sure - fair cop :)

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 2:01am

I don't support it either way - I live in Australia and we don't have online voting for anything political. Personally I think if the 'sticker' is important then perhaps they need a better system of deciding which sticker they want to use. I don't know anything about the implications of the end result of the vote either.

But I thought it better to have this conversation in a discussion post rather than on the message board for the entire group.

I went along with the idea initially because I didn't see any harm in 'stacking' the pole towards getting a sticker without the word 'god' in it. But perhaps that's naive and immature on my part.

What's good and bad and moral and just etc seems to be cultural as well as personal or religious.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 7:33pm

<i>To go to the heart of the matter. When the poll is set up to gain an idea of the state's resident's wishes, any attempt to subvert it is just that. The only way you can decide it is ethical to subvert is if you decide that your concept of what should be trumps our civic duty to one another.</i>

I'm not sure I agree with this. The very last part "trumps our civic duty to one another" is not what is going on. I have a civic duty, but I also have my ethics, and they don't always agree. Additionally, I don't think my civic duty is served by allowing something like the poll in question go forward as set up. When an option that is patently unconstitutional is at hand, I think my civic duty and my ethics push me to do what I must to stop it. Call it "civil disobedience" if you like, I think it is a bit much to say that since it is a freaking sticker, but that is essentially what I'm doing.

Thanks for this ongoing conversation by the way, it has been very thought provoking.

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 2:03am

You seem pretty worked up about it all...

Permalink Reply by mike h. on July 12, 2011 at 7:58am

Great discussion. Sometimes, there is NO need to have a "side". This is not an athiest or other belief situation. It is a pure matter of right vs. wrong, and I take it from some posters, justifications of why its ok to do different than what was setup. The world at large has laws, rules basically for the world to get along. I do not like many things attached to a law/rule, but must abide by them. Again, this has nothing to do with stated belief systems. Speed limits were designed for safety, although I like to go faster, a penalty will be paid if I do not follow the limit, like it or not. We can see right thru the underhanded sneaky double talk. Richard is not worked up, he is rather intelligence (and compassionate LOL) in logical/rational replies. Also the truth. Truth does not hurt, its the disclosure of it....

Permalink Reply by Alice on July 12, 2011 at 7:20pm

Mike I agree with you regarding Hitchens comments - but we do naturally have social values....

I think of Indigenous people who took advantage of telegraph poles put in across the desert - they quickly worked out how to climb up the poles and get the glass and use the glass on their spear heads - now where they immoral for doing that? Or where they just taking advantage of a new resource on their land?

Of course - they didn't realise that they were damaging government property or creating a hindrance to telecommunications between immigrant Europeans in Australia. I'm sure even if they knew the implications it may not have changed their behaviour - as they had just been invaded by a foreign race intent on the destruction of their land and culture. In this case, like the others I've mentioned - the morals and ethics are complex.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 12:45pm

voting as many times as you wish is a violation.

Except the site explicitly says:

Visit this page daily from now through August 8 to vote for your favorite from among six new designs.

Permalink Reply by John Secular Smith on July 12, 2011 at 9:17pm

I see you don't respond to my arguments in the way you accuse others of doing. Picking your battles I guess.