@Cyracuz,
Cyracuz wrote:
If you eat children for breakfast, silver forks, fancy tablecloth and 90 servants dont make you civilized.
But who the hell eats children for breakfast?
Civilized is just a bad word to try and think with. We talk about the aztec civilization, and yet they had mass human sacrifice (close enough to eating children for breakfast?). They were more of a civilization than some of the other north american peoples, by the definition of civilization. But when we describe an individual as civilized we are talking about something vaguely different. At least it feels like it, we use it like we use "cultured". But wasn't ted bundy a civilized person? He was also a serial killer, but to deny that he was civilized is to pretend that civilizations must somehow wipe clean all the nasty sides of humanity in order to be called civilizations. When really that is not the use or purpose of the word.
I think you're using the no true scotsman fallacy. A
true civilization would not do such and such, you say. And yet it's obvious that our civilization does. So you ought to express your argument in terms of altruism, compassion, and fairness, or something of that nature.