# Philosophical question for atheists... the "nothing really matters" problem



## Ravellian

I'm in one of my philosophical moods today, bear with me...

I am a declared atheist and I always will be, since it seems obvious to me that it is simply not rational to adhere to any religion. However, atheism creates a problem. Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem. We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:

1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.

Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*

My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?


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## Philip

well then not god but society will punish or reject you if your behaviour is inappropriate or morally questionable... i don't see the problem


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## Ravellian

Philip said:


> well then not god but society will punish or reject you if your behaviour is inappropriate or morally questionable... i don't see the problem


I could care less about societal norms. I'm a bit more careful about breaking the law, though  Anyway, I'm more interested in how this affects day-to-day behavior, not criminal affairs...


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## regressivetransphobe

"But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are inherently obligated to do these things."

It's called the law. It obliges individuals not to act in certain ways that a society has agreed upon as harmful.

It has nothing to do with faith, it has to do with empathy. What a stupid question.


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## Kopachris

I think you're struggling with nihilism. Nietzsche struggled with the same problem; I'd suggest you read some of his books.


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## Ravellian

regressivetransphobe said:


> "But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are inherently obligated to do these things."
> 
> It's called the law. It obliges individuals not to act in certain ways that a society has agreed upon as harmful.
> 
> It has nothing to do with faith, it has to do with empathy. What a stupid question.


Completely missed my point (why am I not surprised?). Does the law require us to get married, have kids, be a good parent, be a 'nice' person, do your job well? No. In fact, _nothing_ requires us to be those things.


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## Ravellian

Kopachris said:


> I think you're struggling with nihilism. Nietzsche struggled with the same problem; I'd suggest you read some of his books.


That sounds like a good idea. Any particular books or chapters that you would recommend?


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## Philip

Ravellian said:


> I could care less about societal norms. I'm a bit more careful about breaking the law, though  Anyway, I'm more interested in how this affects day-to-day behavior, not criminal affairs...


if you obey the law, by definition you are following "societal norms". i still see no problem. please enlighten me by providing an example.


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## HerlockSholmes

As an atheist, I don't find it troubling at all. Because, essentially, the reason I wouldn't do "morally questionable action x" is not because of fear of an imaginary deity, but simply because of empathy. For instance, you wouldn't appreciate it if someone else committed "morally questionable action x" and you were the victim, would you? It's basically about putting yourself in the other's person's place and understanding how this action would affect them and how you would feel if it affected you instead.
Also, if this "morally questionable action" was a serious crime, then it would actually affect you significantly when you spend the rest of your life in jail. And even if you decide to commit suicide instead, then you've done nothing but waste this one chance you've had at living. And with no after life, it would be a great loss, wouldn't you agree?


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## Ravellian

Philip said:


> if you obey the law, by definition you are following "societal norms". i still see no problem. please enlighten me by providing an example.


I guess I'm not being clear enough. Here's an example:

1. My wife loves me, and I like her, but I want to see other women as well.
2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
3. Therefore, I can cheat on my wife and not feel guilty about it.

Make sense? I'm not breaking any laws here, but this is still probably considered morally questionable. But yet I can do it without feeling any guilt because of the above rationalization.


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## HerlockSholmes

Ravellian said:


> I guess I'm not being clear enough. Here's an example:
> 
> 1. My wife loves me, and I like her, but I want to see other women as well.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I can cheat on my wife and not feel guilty about it.
> 
> Make sense? I'm not breaking any laws here, but this is still probably considered morally questionable. But yet I can do it without feeling any guilt because of the above rationalization.


Well, if she finds out about it and it's all taken to court, then it would have _a few_ consequences. But no, you wouldn't have to feel guilty about it. Unless you have kids who will eventually lead miserable lives because of your actions.


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## mmsbls

Relatively recently the very quickly growing field of evolutionary psychology has developed. The general idea is that humans (and other animals) have evolved brain mechanisms that lead to moral behaviors. For example, ee do not (in general) have sex with our children because we find it repugnant (just like eating manure). The reason we find it repugnant is not primarily from philosophical reasoning or morality but from inherent features that have evolved over long periods of time. Having sex with relatives leads to less fit individuals. There are studies that suggest that altruism also evolved. The details are rather involved, but there are reasons to believe that being nice benefits individual reproductive success. You may think that altruism and niceness are completely products of our upbringing, but that appears not to be so. 

I'm not sure what percentage of our moral beliefs are strongly influenced by our evolution, but it is probably significant. Obviously there are some morals questions that likely are not a product of evolution. In these areas atheists are not much different from believers. We both decide how to behave based on a combination of our inherited psychological aspects coupled with our experiences. One might suspect that believers would have stronger reasons to act "properly" due to possible ultimate punishments, but it appears difficult to determine whether someone is an atheist or a believer based purely on their moral behavior. Believers often act against the commandments of their faith. The only real difference is that a believer can justify a particular moral belief based on their religion whereas an atheist must use reason.


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## Philip

Ravellian said:


> I guess I'm not being clear enough. Here's an example:
> 
> 1. My wife loves me, and I like her, but I want to see other women as well.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I can cheat on my wife and not feel guilty about it.
> 
> Make sense? I'm not breaking any laws here, but this is still probably considered morally questionable. But yet I can do it without feeling any guilt because of the above rationalization.


yeah and consequently society rejects you, ie. your wife, her family, friends perhaps, and then punishes you by making you pay child support and taking half your pay. if you don't care, society rejects you further by calling you an ***. have you been living under a rock?


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## Ravellian

HerlockSholmes said:


> As an atheist, I don't find it troubling at all. Because, essentially, the reason I wouldn't do "morally questionable action x" is not because of fear of an imaginary deity, but simply because of empathy. For instance, you wouldn't appreciate it if someone else committed "morally questionable action x" and you were the victim, would you? It's basically about putting yourself in the other's person's place and understanding how this action would affect them and how you would feel if it affected you instead.
> Also, if this "morally questionable action" was a serious crime, then it would actually affect you significantly when you spend the rest of your life in jail. And even if you decide to commit suicide instead, then you've done nothing but waste this one chance you've had at living. And with no after life, it would be a great loss, wouldn't you agree?


Well I've always had trouble feeling empathy, in fact I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was younger. But in any case, we have no inherent obligation to feel empathy for others, correct? I find empathy to be a hindrance more often than not; people worry too much about how other people's feelings were hurt by something, etc.. most of the time if somebody's hurt by something it's their own fault anyway, and I think they should just get over with it and move on. Only the strong survive, as they say!


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## mmsbls

Ravellian said:


> Make sense? I'm not breaking any laws here, but this is still probably considered morally questionable. But yet I can do it without feeling any guilt because of the above rationalization.


But in reality you cannot (or at least most people cannot) do it without feeling guilt. Guilt is a very strong emotion that has evolved to constrain behaviors.


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## Ravellian

Philip said:


> yeah and consequently society rejects you, ie. your wife, her family, friends perhaps, and then punishes you by making you pay child support and taking half your pay. if you don't care, society rejects you further by calling you an ***. have you been living under a rock?


That's why you get a prenup


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## HerlockSholmes

Ravellian said:


> Well I've always had trouble feeling empathy, in fact I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was younger. But in any case, we have no inherent obligation to feel empathy for others, correct? I find empathy to be a hindrance more often than not; people worry too much about how other people's feelings were hurt by something, etc.. most of the time if somebody's hurt by something it's their own fault anyway, and I think they should just get over with it and move on. Only the strong survive, as they say!


Most of the time it's their own fault? How?
Also, empathy is only a hindrance if you're only thinking of yourself. You'd probably appreciate it a lot if people were empathetic towards _you_, wouldn't you?

"Only the strong survive, as they say!"
What if _you_ were one of the weak ones?


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## Kopachris

Ravellian said:


> That sounds like a good idea. Any particular books or chapters that you would recommend?


I haven't read it yet (I've only read _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_), but _Beyond Good and Evil_ might help you. It throughly discusses the origins of morality and presents alternative sources. If you can get past the excess of manner, though, _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_ is Nietzsche's master-work as far ethics, morality, and virtue go.


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## Ravellian

mmsbls said:


> Relatively recently the very quickly growing field of evolutionary psychology has developed. The general idea is that humans (and other animals) have evolved brain mechanisms that lead to moral behaviors. For example, ee do not (in general) have sex with our children because we find it repugnant (just like eating manure). The reason we find it repugnant is not primarily from philosophical reasoning or morality but from inherent features that have evolved over long periods of time. Having sex with relatives leads to less fit individuals. There are studies that suggest that altruism also evolved. The details are rather involved, but there are reasons to believe that being nice benefits individual reproductive success. You may think that altruism and niceness are completely products of our upbringing, but that appears not to be so.
> 
> I'm not sure what percentage of our moral beliefs are strongly influenced by our evolution, but it is probably significant. Obviously there are some morals questions that likely are not a product of evolution. In these areas atheists are not much different from believers. We both decide how to behave based on a combination of our inherited psychological aspects coupled with our experiences. One might suspect that believers would have stronger reasons to act "properly" due to possible ultimate punishments, but it appears difficult to determine whether someone is an atheist or a believer based purely on their moral behavior. Believers often act against the commandments of their faith. The only real difference is that a believer can justify a particular moral belief based on their religion whereas an atheist must use reason.


This makes sense that people would generally behave in a certain way to do evolved behavioral tendencies. That's why most people try to be nice, moral people without thinking too hard about it. But again, there's nothing stopping us from just deciding _not to do the moral thing_, whenever we feel we need to rationalize it and we can get away with it. This is why the world is such an unbalanced place - thousands of years of people trying to steal from others to get ahead _because they can._


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Those of us who have studied even just first year or second year microeconomics would know that regardless of whether one is an atheist or not, one's own decision making process to choose to do certain things are, consciously or sub-consciously, based on the satisfaction we get out of doing it versus any costs associated with it. By cost, I do not necessarily mean financial ones. Even donating one's money and or time to charitable causes say, come from the sense of personal satisfaction (s)he feels afterwards. And even the choice of living versus death (say suicide) involves this assessment, as analysed by Garry Becker (professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Nobel winner) in his interesting paper about the topic.

Ravellian's point #2 basically appears to suggest that the pleasure or sense of satisfaction one might experience while alive over one's expected lifespan might be far less than the undesirable consequences of disatisfaction/pain/misery or just lack of sufficient satisfaction to want to live. Under normal circumstances (i.e. in economics speak, a rational individual), (s)he seeks to maximise this sense of satisfaction subject to the constraints that (s)he might have, which include for example financial, legal, social and personal ones that (s)he faces. Using religion is also one means of maximising this sense of satisfaction, consciously or not.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Ravellian said:


> ... thousands of years of people trying to steal from others to get ahead _because they can._


Using this example, and following on from my notes above, it's clear that individuals who stole did so believing that the satisfaction from owning the stolen goods/financial rewards were worth undertaking, subject to the legal constraints and risks of getting caught (facing punishment etc.). To them, the benefits far exceed the risks, so they steal. Individuals who don't steal, value order in society for example and actively choose not to steal, or that the risks of the consequences of getting caught and the punishment that follow are far greater _for them_, than those who steal.


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## Ravellian

_Most of the time it's their own fault? How?
Also, empathy is only a hindrance if you're only thinking of yourself. You'd probably appreciate it a lot if people were empathetic towards you, wouldn't you?_

Well, I honestly don't think I can answer this. It might be a result of my 'syndrome,' but I simply don't grasp the concept of empathy in reality. I have an extremely difficult time understanding emotional responses from other people.

_"Only the strong survive, as they say!"
What if you were one of the weak ones?_

I'm not one of them, so that's all that matters to me.


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## Ravellian

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Using this example, and following on from my notes above, it's clear that individuals who stole did so believing that the satisfaction from owning the stolen goods/financial rewards were worth undertaking, subject to the legal constraints and risks of getting caught (facing punishment etc.). To them, the benefits far exceed the risks, so they steal. Individuals who don't steal, value order in society for example and actively choose not to steal, or that the risks of the consequences of getting caught and the punishment that follow are far greater _for them_, than those who steal.


I agree with your statements HC.. you seem to be outlining the concept of utilitarian moral theory, which states that the correct moral action is the one that maximizes utility (pleasure - pain) from the perspective of the agent. And for the agent, the action that maximizes pleasure could be anything, even, ironically, something society deems as 'evil.' I think this is the theory that most closely approximates reality.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Ravellian said:


> I agree with your statements HC.. you seem to be outlining the concept of utilitarian moral theory, which states that the correct moral action is the one that maximizes utility (pleasure - pain) from the perspective of the agent. And for the agent, the action that maximizes pleasure could be anything, even, ironically, something society deems as 'evil.' I think this is the theory that most closely approximates reality.


I think so too. And remember this approach does not pass value judgements on people's _preferences_, it only attempts to explain why people choose to do what they do (i.e. their actions) in order obtain that sense of satisfaction, which differs between all of us. (Why some love Handel's music and why others love the cacophonic cr...  ).


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## Lenfer

I do not believe in a god or gods an afterlife or reincarnation and most people consider this to be "atheism". However it does not state what one does believe. I believe that I will die and my consciousness will no longer exsist. I cannot imagine what this will be like and it does frighten me a little although I am not scared of death. 

Mankind does not need an outside force in order for us to be moral beings. The vast majority of people will know what feels right and wrong to them and act according. If the only reason you are a decent person is for the promise of an after life, X number of virgins or the fear of burning in hell or being a worm in your next life then I don't think your a good person at all.

Mankind is very good at punishing itselfs without a devine hand in play.


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## Ravellian

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I think so too. And remember this approach does not pass value judgements on people's _preferences_, it only attempts to explain why people choose to do what they do (i.e. their actions) in order obtain that sense of satisfaction, which differs between all of us. (Why some love Handel's music and why others love the cacophonic cr...  ).


Indeed. And this helps to explain why people try to get ahead at the expense of others, and why I feel there is always this tension surrounding whether or not people will choose to do society's conventional morally "right" thing. They can simply choose to rationalize it in a way that favors them, regardless of what the action is, using the "nothing really matters" thought progression or utilitarian theory, both of which are logically valid. This is the "problem" I was trying to explain in the first post.


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## starthrower

Ravellian said:


> _Most of the time it's their own fault? How?
> Also, empathy is only a hindrance if you're only thinking of yourself. You'd probably appreciate it a lot if people were empathetic towards you, wouldn't you?_
> 
> Well, I honestly don't think I can answer this. It might be a result of my 'syndrome,' but I simply don't grasp the concept of empathy in reality. I have an extremely difficult time understanding emotional responses from other people.
> 
> _"Only the strong survive, as they say!"
> What if you were one of the weak ones?_
> 
> I'm not one of them, so that's all that matters to me.


That's unfortunate.


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## Amfibius

Your question is whether secular ethics exists, and how it can be justified. It is a very good question. Peter Singer gave an enlightening talk on secular ethics at the World Atheist Convention in Melbourne in 2010. Get yourself a copy of _Ethics_, or better still - type "secular ethics" into Google. Or even better still - come to Melbourne for the next Atheist Convention in 2012. I have my tickets


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## Ravellian

I'm not convinced empathy is the best answer here, as it appeals solely to emotion, not rational thought. Any empathetic considerations could easily be trumped by a utilitarian or "nothing really matters" rationalization, regardless of how "empathetic" that person is, particularly if the potential rewards are high and the risks are low..


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Ravellian said:


> Indeed. And this helps to explain why people try to get ahead at the expense of others, and why I feel there is always this tension surrounding whether or not people will choose to do society's conventional morally "right" thing. They can simply choose to rationalize it in a way that favors them, regardless of what the action is, using the "nothing really matters" thought progression or utilitarian theory, both of which are logically valid. This is the "problem" I was trying to explain in the first post.


I wouldn't even describe it as "they can simply _choose to rationalise_ it that way". This approach explains it as the _inherent_ decision making process itself, consciously or sub-consciously. Take for example an election where candidate X wants to win the most votes to become a politician/congressman. Although he might choose to do dirty tricks by digging up scandalous news about his opponents to draw voters away from his opponents, this is just but one of the many types of things he might well choose to do in order to achieve his ultimate goal, which is to win the most votes; and subject to the constraints of say, the risks of getting caught out and or the financial costs associated with doing the research versus using the election funds for other purposes to help him win.


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## Lukecash12

Actually Ravelian, there are Darwinian and naturalistic morality models, as well as metaphysical models that work off of "consciousness" and "well being".

Here is Sam Harris' take on it:



> Now, in claiming that values reduce to the well-being of conscious creatures--as I will--uh, I'm introducing two concepts: Consciousness and well-being. Now, let's start with consciousness--this is not an arbitrary starting point. Imagine a universe devoid of the possibility of consciousness--imagine a universe entirely constituted of rocks. Ok, there's clearly no happiness or suffering in this universe; there's no good or evil; value judgments don't apply. For, for changes in the universe to matter, they have to matter, at least potentially, to some conscious system.
> 
> Ok, what about well-being? Well, the well-being of conscious creatures, and the, and the link between that and morality, may seem open to doubt, but it shouldn't. Ok, here's the only assumption you have to make. Imagine a universe in which every conscious creatures suffers as much as it possibly can, for as long as it can. Ok, I call this "the worst possible misery for everyone". Ok, the worst possible misery for everyone is bad. Ok, if, if, if the word "bad" applies anywhere, it applies here. Now, if you think the worst possible misery for everyone isn't bad, or maybe it has a silver lining, or maybe there's something worse, I don't know what you're talking about. And what's more, I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about either.
> 
> The-what I'm saying is, the minimum standard of moral goodness is to avoid the worst possible misery for everyone. If we should do anything in this universe, if we ought to do anything, if we have a moral duty to do anything, it's to avoid the worst possible misery for everyone. And the moment you admit this, you admit that, that, that all other possible states of the universe are better than the worst possible misery for everyone. You have the worst possible misery for everyone over here, and all these other constellation of experiences arrayed out here, and because the experience of conscious creatures is dependent in some way on the laws of nature, there will be right and wrong ways to move along this continuum. It will be possible to think that you're avoiding the worst possible misery for everyone--and to fail. You can be wrong in your beliefs about how to navigate this space.
> 
> So here's my argument, for moral truth in the context of science. Questions of right and wrong, and good and evil, depend upon minds. They depend upon the possibility of experience. Minds are natural phenomena. They depend upon the laws of nature in some way. Morality and human values, therefore, can be understood through science, because in talking about these things, we are talking about all of the facts that influence the well-being of conscious creatures. In our case, we're talking about genetics, and neurobiology, and psychology, and sociology, and economics.


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## macgeek2005

The idea that you need to believe that there is a big angry God up above who will send you to hell if you don't behave is ludicrous, childish, and absurd.

The idea that one might see no reason not to harm their fellow man unless they'd be punished in an afterlife for doing so is ludicrous, childish, and absurd as well.

The religious mentality that fosters the notion that one needs this angry celestial parent in order to keep them behaving kind and compassionate toward their fellow humans, is essentially the mentality of a very small child, and holds no place or bearing on sane, kind, intelligent adults.


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## Lukecash12

macgeek2005 said:


> The idea that you need to believe that there is a big angry God up above who will send you to hell if you don't behave is ludicrous, childish, and absurd.
> 
> The idea that one might see no reason not to harm their fellow man unless they'd be punished in an afterlife for doing so is ludicrous, childish, and absurd as well.
> 
> The religious mentality that fosters the notion that one needs this angry celestial parent in order to keep them behaving kind and compassionate toward their fellow humans, is essentially the mentality of a very small child, and holds no place or bearing on sane, kind, intelligent adults.


My friend, you don't appear to be contributing anything to the thread there. The OP posed the question of how an atheist can rationally inhibit him/her self with morals. Is there a basis for any atheist's morality?


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## macgeek2005

Lukecash12 said:


> My friend, you don't appear to be contributing anything to the thread there. The OP posed the question of how an atheist can rationally inhibit him/her self with morals. Is there a basis for any atheist's morality?


YES! The basis for an atheist's morality is kindness and compassion! As opposed to fear and obedience, which are the basis of the religious person's morality. My post was 100% relevant.


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## graaf

_the "nothing really matters" problem_

Sam Harris touched up on that subject recently, here's the link. I think he said all I'd want to say, but more eloquently.


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## Kieran

macgeek2005 said:


> YES! The basis for an atheist's morality is kindness and compassion! As opposed to fear and obedience, which are the basis of the religious person's morality. My post was 100% relevant.


What he's asking is, in the absence of a higher order to judge us, man is effectively his own sheriff. Therefore, why not live a totally selfish life? Why bother with "kindness and compassion", which we humans experience in a finite way, anyhow, and so we dispense them according to our whims or measure.

It's a valid question, one which we probably all come across at times, when we think of ways to make our lives better, or more interesting. If man is the highest order, then "justice" is a relative term, as can be seen by the way different countries deal differently with crime. And also, by the way we treat and see things differently now than they did, say, 500 years ago. Justice is expedient, if man is the higher order. Human life is no longer sacred and so therefore anything is possible.

Even further than this, for the individual, why bother with society's laws, anyhow? Because we're all human? So what! We're all gonna die, so why not make the most of it while you can, get away with as much as you can? Who cares about you? Live selfishly and get what you can, because it's every man for himself. And woman, too!

I don't agree with this, by the way, but this is the essence of the problem. If I want something, why not take it?

It's a valid question. I'd be interested to see how going down that road it pans out for Ravellian...


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## Lukecash12

macgeek2005 said:


> YES! The basis for an atheist's morality is kindness and compassion! As opposed to fear and obedience, which are the basis of the religious person's morality. My post was 100% relevant.


1. You are assuming what religious people believe for them. This doesn't characterize you well at all.

2. What is the basis for an atheist finding kindness and compassion more preferable than anything else? After all, our emotional inclinations are nothing but stimulation from endorphines and other hormones, giving us something akin to a subjective vision that directs our behavior towards successful evolution.


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## Kieran

macgeek2005 said:


> The idea that you need to believe that there is a big angry God up above who will send you to hell if you don't behave is ludicrous, childish, and absurd.
> 
> The idea that one might see no reason not to harm their fellow man unless they'd be punished in an afterlife for doing so is ludicrous, childish, and absurd as well.
> 
> The religious mentality that fosters the notion that one needs this angry celestial parent in order to keep them behaving kind and compassionate toward their fellow humans, is essentially the mentality of a very small child, and holds no place or bearing on sane, kind, intelligent adults.


In fairness, I know no religious people who think this way, but this is irrelevant to the discussion, so...:tiphat:


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## graaf

I think many people participating in this thread do not realize how selfish they actually might already be - not in their own eyes, obviously. Even less are they aware what portion of their conduct is based on fear, and not some high moral principle (not talking about terrifying fear, but more of a fear manifested as an anxiety, for example). I guess that's the case because it is so easy for us to sit, change nothing and simply speculate on how it would be to live a life behaving like a douche, when in fact only one step in that direction would quickly show us the real reasons behind our behaviour.

But then again, this is a _forum _and it pretty much is about speculating, at least more than it is about doing.


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## Lukecash12

graaf said:


> I think many people participating in this thread do not realize how selfish they actually might already be - not in their own eyes, obviously. Even less are they aware what portion of their conduct is based on fear, and not some high moral principle (not talking about terrifying fear, but more of a fear manifested as an anxiety, for example). I guess that's the case because it is so easy for us to sit, change nothing and simply speculate on how it would be to live a life behaving like a douche, when in fact only one step in that direction would quickly show us the real reasons behind our behaviour.
> 
> But then again, this is a _forum _and it pretty much is about speculating, at least more than it is about doing.


I'm sorry, but that isn't exactly the salient observation you may think it is, considering how many cultures promote hubris behavior depending on the circumstance. Take my mother and step father as an example: When I was around 17, my step father used to drink heavily, behave like a 4 year old in most respects, and blow money on golf (not contributing to the bills and leaving our situation up to my grand parents). He even used to tell me that I had no business using the television remote, or even watching television, because that was a privilege and "he paid the cable bill". It turned out that he had never paid a cable bill in his silly little life, and my child support (which even continued for a while because of unpaid child support and my attending college) contributed exponentially more to the well being of those in my household than he did.

And what did he get for his drinking problem, verbal abuse, money blowing, and his other behavior that humiliated us? My mother was codependent on him, and he came from a family that considered all of this behavior perfectly fine, so he had no anxiety at all about his behavior. When asked to apologize for getting drunk and half singing and half shouting all night long (on a school night), he simply left for a couple days because "he didn't have to deal with that **".


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## graaf

Lukecash12 said:


> I'm sorry, but that isn't exactly the salient observation you may think it is, considering how many cultures promote hubris behavior depending on the circumstance. Take my mother and step father as an example: When I was around 17, my step father used to drink heavily, behave like a 4 year old in most respects, and blow money on golf (not contributing to the bills and leaving our situation up to my grand parents). He even used to tell me that I had no business using the television remote, or even watching television, because that was a privilege and "he paid the cable bill". It turned out that he had never paid a cable bill in his silly little life, and my child support (which even continued for a while because of unpaid child support and my attending college) contributed exponentially more to the well being of those in my household than he did.
> 
> And what did he get for his drinking problem, verbal abuse, money blowing, and his other behavior that humiliated us? My mother was codependent on him, and he came from a family that considered all of this behavior perfectly fine, so he had no anxiety at all about his behavior. When asked to apologize for getting drunk and half singing and half shouting all night long (on a school night), he simply left for a couple days because "he didn't have to deal with that **".


So, when I say that too many people falsely believe that they are more guided by high moral principles than by fear of social condemnation, you make an example of a very irresponsible parent who didn't face social condemnation for that, and now that proves what? That most of the people don't have fear of social condemnation? And thus most people are motivated by philosophical principles more than fear/anxiety?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I do not see how an example of irresponsible father changes the fact that too many people speculate of living a life of a douche, without realizing what would it look like to make a single step towards that.

PS
Now that I think of it again, an example of irresponsible father who didn't have social condemnation for bad behaviour, only shows what are people capable to do when there is no fear from society, and thus how much more important that fear of social condemnation is than any "philosophical reason".


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## Lukecash12

graaf said:


> So, when I say that too many people falsely believe that they are more guided by high moral principles than by fear of social condemnation, you make an example of a very irresponsible parent who didn't face social condemnation for that, and now that proves what? That most of the people don't have fear of social condemnation? And thus most people are motivated by philosophical principles more than fear/anxiety?
> 
> Maybe I'm missing something, but I do not see how an example of irresponsible father changes the fact that too many people speculate of living a life of a douche, without realizing what would it look like to make a single step towards that.
> 
> PS
> Now that I think of it again, an example of irresponsible father who didn't have social condemnation for bad behaviour, only shows what are people capable to do when there is no fear from society, and thus how much more important that fear of social condemnation is than any "philosophical reason".


The issue with your theory:

You are giving a one size fits all answer. This is not very well in line with anthropology, sociology, and psychology at large. Different cultures create different people. Your perspective is reminiscent of Thales of Miletus, or Heraclitus, because it isn't substantiated by anything other than your rhetoric. What if it can be observed that tons of people live their lives according to philosophical inclinations in one culture or another? Well it can- Observe Athens of ancient Greece, where Socrates may have been executed for being a philosopher, but by the time the Neoplatonics were prominent and Greece was part of Rome's empire, philosophy was dominant and people regularly debated over works like Plato's Republic, Plato's Laws, Plato's Apology, and Aristotle's Politics.


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## graaf

Lukecash12 said:


> The issue with your theory:
> 
> You are giving a one size fits all answer. This is not very well in line with anthropology, sociology, and psychology at large. Different cultures create different people. Your perspective is reminiscent of Thales of Miletus, or Heraclitus, because it isn't substantiated by anything other than your rhetoric. What if it can be observed that tons of people live their lives according to philosophical inclinations in one culture or another? Well it can- Observe Athens of ancient Greece, where Socrates may have been executed for being a philosopher, but by the time the Neoplatonics were prominent and Greece was part of Rome's empire, philosophy was dominant and people regularly debated over works like Plato's Republic, Plato's Laws, Plato's Apology, and Aristotle's Politics.


Greeks also said: know thyself. I'm just adding that when we do that, not everything is rosy.

best regards, 
graaf


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## Lukecash12

graaf said:


> Greeks also said: know thyself. I'm just adding that when we do that, not everything is rosy.
> 
> best regards,
> graaf


Which Greek(s) said that? 

Best regards,
Luke :tiphat:


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## Yoshi

I'm a bit tired of hearing people say that atheists don't feel the need to follow moral rules. I was raised as an atheist but I always had empathy for other people. I do not need someone to tell me that I'll go to hell or even prison if I hurt someone. I simply don't do to others what I don't want others to do to me. It's not that difficult to understand that the world doesn't revolve around me and that I should respect other people.


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## Almaviva

> So here's my argument, for moral truth in the context of science. Questions of right and wrong, and good and evil, depend upon minds. They depend upon the possibility of experience. Minds are natural phenomena. They depend upon the laws of nature in some way. Morality and human values, therefore, can be understood through science, because in talking about these things, we are talking about all of the facts that influence the well-being of conscious creatures. In our case, we're talking about genetics, and neurobiology, and *psychology*, and sociology, and economics


mmsbls talked about biology (evolution), HC talked about economics, etc. From the standpoint of psychology (actually, psychoanalysis) these "moral" behaviors stem from the ability or lack thereof of introjecting an authority figure that will function as the proverbial consciousness, namely a superego. Antisocial individuals lack this function and behave like your stepfather. Others use various defense mechanisms to keep conflict at bay (derived from the antagonism between the pleasure principle and the reality principle), for example, reaction formation: one has the instinctual drive of behaving aggressively, and turns as a defense into the opposite behavior (being ultra-kind) in order to avoid the feeling of dread that the superego would impact on the individual if the aggressive behavior was adopted. According to Freud in _Civilization and its Discontents,_ and in _Totem and Tabou, _the superego is the heir of the need for societal organization, since from individualistic nomadic behavior we evolved into an organized society and norms and laws and guilt-inducing superego were needed to curb the disruptive behaviors that would threaten society if every human being just fended for himself/herself.


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## Polednice

Ravellian, I've found most of your points rather confusing, and you seem to be labouring a thought that doesn't really matter on a societal scale.

For example, with your 3-step thought process:

1. I want to do immoral x.
2. The universe will die and we will go unnoticed.
3. So I don't need to feel guilty.

Here, you already _immediately_ concede that we know what is and isn't moral. Where does that sense come from? Read mmsbls, but that's not essential to your point.

The problem your raising is that we have no obligation to be moral and so can ignore our emotions and do bad things. Well, yes. We have altruism, and empathy, and self-preservation as defence mechanisms, but **** happens and people will do bad things without caring for the human consequences. That's just psychopathy.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Yeah... Ravi Zacharias refers to this as the problem of "moral law without a moral law-giver." As to the contention that we can rely on our feelings for guidance on this matter, this was brought up in one of the debates in which he participated. His reply was "in some cultures, people are taught to love their neighbor... in others, they are taught to eat their neighbor-- both on the basis of feelings. Do you distinguish between the two?!"

I realize the above is a bit of straw, and is not meant to characterize anyone's previous positions. There are more subtle ways to define morality forwarded by skeptics, most notably Kant's enjoinder that one should act as though one's actions could serve as the basis for universal law. You could do worse than that advice-- but it's hardly an original concept, as it appears in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and also those of the Buddha.


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## Klavierspieler

Polednice said:


> Here, you already _immediately_ concede that we know what is and isn't moral. Where does that sense come from?


Without God, there are no morals, and even if there are, we cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct.


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## Kopachris

Despite the fact that I'm not an atheist, I find this thread rather interesting. I thought people would have an answer to nihilism by now and it would no longer be a problem for atheists. I believe in God, but God isn't the source of my own morality. In fact, a true Christian knows that they won't go to hell just for sinning--that's what Jesus died for. Christian morality _shouldn't_ be based on fear, but on love and compassion; a good Christian should want to follow Jesus' teachings because they admire Jesus' character. I've found a source of morality in a desire to emulate a certain character. I've been heavily influenced by a few pieces of literature: I'd like to be like Jean Valjean and Monseigneur Bievenu from _Les Misérables_, and I'd like to avoid being like Winston Smith from _Nineteen Eighty-four_. I admire the former and detest the latter, and I try to model my own character accordingly. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Do you want to be a supervillain? (I did, at one point in time.) Be a supervillain and model your virtues to help you. Do you want to be a person that others will admire? Model your virtues accordingly. Do you want to be a successful business-person? Model your virtues accordingly.


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## mmsbls

Klavierspieler said:


> Without God, there are no morals, and even if there are, we cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct.


I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Do you mean that atheists have no morals? Or do you mean that the morals all people have _must_ come from God whether someone is religious or not? The former is clearly wrong. All atheists who are not psychopaths have morals. They may differ from yours, but they have codes of conduct. The latter is more difficult, but as I discussed earlier, there is a growing understanding that morals come from a mix of innate evolved brain mechanisms for behavior and philosophical thinking.

When you say, "We cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct," do you mean "is correct" or "is truly the right thing to do?" Our morals are what they are. We may change them over time, but we generally know what they are. It's true that neither a religious nor a non-religious person can know if their morals are what's "best."

Non-religious people must continually revisit their moral thinking based on their experiences, others' inputs, and further philosophical considerations in order to fine tune their moral sense. Religious people obviously do the same. Even if they believe that God 1) wants humans to follow a specific set of moral behaviors and 2) has explicitly described that set of behaviors for all humans to see, non-religious people have the problem of not having certainty that they, in fact, know where to find that proscribed set of behaviors (i.e. does the Bible, the Koran, or other works actually give one the explicit set of behaviors).


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## Klavierspieler

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Do you mean that atheists have no morals? Or do you mean that the morals all people have _must_ come from God whether someone is religious or not? The former is clearly wrong. All atheists who are not psychopaths have morals. They may differ from yours, but they have codes of conduct. The latter is more difficult, but as I discussed earlier, there is a growing understanding that morals come from a mix of innate evolved brain mechanisms for behavior and philosophical thinking.


I would make a distinction between morals and ethics here.


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## Couchie

Klavierspieler said:


> Without God, there are no morals, and even if there are, we cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct.


We have morals without god. In the last four pages of this thread, perceptive members have outlined the morals born from rational arguments in philosophy, ethics, psychology, economics, and science. We can be sure that our perception of them is correct if they aid us in developing a more peaceful, just, and happy society.

The _divine_ source of morality is the most ancient, simplistic, and was created by humans because they had not yet discovered any of the above. It is also the most dangerous and flawed, particularly in its Abrahamic representation. It divorces the worldly human pain and consequences from the immoral actions that cause them, and replaces them with a self-indulgent negatively-reinforced consequence, namely hellfire. It creates moral problems where none would exist otherwise, such as the idea that homosexuality is wrong or women must completely cover their bodies in public. It cheapens morality by teaching that merely being _born_ is immoral (original sin) and would have us believe that we are guilty of unavoidable thought-crimes such as lust.

Worst yet is its system of absolution, where merely praying to a god figure for forgiveness is enough to wipe away all the injustice that their immoral actions have caused. Remembering that it is a tenet of Christianity that it is impossible to _not_ sin sometimes, this further destroys the sense of morality because an immoral act today, be it a frivolous one like lusting after a pretty girl, or one that atheists would agree is immoral like theft, is a forgiven and forgotten one after Sunday's confession. So we see that the religious also have their own "nothing really matters" problem.


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## Polednice

Klavierspieler said:


> Without God, there are no morals, and even if there are, we cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct.


That's totally wrong, and you come to that conclusion through a simplistic view of morality that states there are absolutes. This is not the case.

Anyway, might I be so naive as to suggest that anyone responding to this thread does so in an _entirely_ atheistic context - I.e. all replies should assume atheism is correct. Only then will you actually be on topic and allow us to avoid an unnecessarily locked thread.


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## Klavierspieler

Couchie said:


> Worst yet is its system of absolution, where merely praying to a god figure for forgiveness is enough to wipe away all the injustice that their immoral actions have caused. Remembering that it is a tenet of Christianity that it is impossible to _not_ sin sometimes, this further destroys the sense of morality because an immoral act today, be it a frivolous one like lusting after a pretty girl, or one that atheists would agree is immoral like theft, is a forgiven and forgotten one after Sunday's confession. So we see that the religious also have their own "nothing really matters" problem.


Asking for forgiveness is only one part of repentance and salvation, the other part is actually putting one's mind and effort into changing one's ways. Also, it isn't necessarily true that it is impossible to not sin, but only through Christ.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, I'm done now.


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## HerlockSholmes

Ravellian said:


> _"Only the strong survive, as they say!"
> What if you were one of the weak ones?_
> 
> I'm not one of them, so that's all that matters to me.


Nice. So now you're standing in your palace of superiority and false pride, thinking that you're not weak and/or will never be weak, and that's all that matters?
Because in reality, you're the same fragile human being that will eventually need the help and sympathy of another person, just like how everyone else does.


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## Philip

HerlockSholmes said:


> Nice. So now you're standing in your palace of superiority and false pride, thinking that you're not weak and/or will never be weak, and that's all that matters?
> Because in reality, you're the same fragile human being that will eventually need the help and sympathy of another person, just like how everyone else does.


i'm sure he wasn't always that strong, perhaps a few years ago, when mommy was powdering his bottom...


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## Lukecash12

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. Do you mean that atheists have no morals? Or do you mean that the morals all people have _must_ come from God whether someone is religious or not? The former is clearly wrong. All atheists who are not psychopaths have morals. They may differ from yours, but they have codes of conduct. The latter is more difficult, but as I discussed earlier, there is a growing understanding that morals come from a mix of innate evolved brain mechanisms for behavior and philosophical thinking.
> 
> When you say, "We cannot be entirely sure that our perception of them is correct," do you mean "is correct" or "is truly the right thing to do?" Our morals are what they are. We may change them over time, but we generally know what they are. It's true that neither a religious nor a non-religious person can know if their morals are what's "best."
> 
> Non-religious people must continually revisit their moral thinking based on their experiences, others' inputs, and further philosophical considerations in order to fine tune their moral sense. Religious people obviously do the same. Even if they believe that God 1) wants humans to follow a specific set of moral behaviors and 2) has explicitly described that set of behaviors for all humans to see, non-religious people have the problem of not having certainty that they, in fact, know where to find that proscribed set of behaviors (i.e. does the Bible, the Koran, or other works actually give one the explicit set of behaviors).


He means to say that atheists haven't any sort of epistemic reason to have morals.

Epistemic: of or relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation. Origin: 1920s: from Greek epistēmē 'knowledge' (see epistemology)

Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. Origin: mid 19th century: from Greek epistēmē 'knowledge', from epistasthai 'know, know how to do'.

So, Ravellian's question, as far as I can tell, has to do with whether or not an atheist can *objectively* feel that he/she conducts himself appropriately. If that question can not be answered objectively and in the positive by an atheist, than the atheists who tried to answer it are obligated by intellectual honesty to agree that their morals are subjective and ultimately arbitrary.


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## Lukecash12

> We have morals without god. In the last four pages of this thread, perceptive members have outlined the morals born from rational arguments in philosophy, ethics, psychology, economics, and science. We can be sure that our perception of them is correct if they aid us in developing a more peaceful, just, and happy society.


Tell me, why is conduct that is conducive of evolution and psychological health important to an atheist, objectively? In a universe that regards us as genome markers and carriers, that doesn't need us to have philosophical triumphs, that doesn't require much more than the interpersonal sociology of us than is exhibited in apes, and is indifferent to things like peaceful, just, and happy (because strife spreads genes, justice inhibits competition, and happiness doesn't sharpen our senses like anger), why is it that an atheist needs to regard justice, peace, and happiness as preferable? There's no actual indicator that it is necessary for evolution, because before we developed superior technology and thus were given the impetus to conduct ourselves in a very sociologically complex world, we still had about the same survival rate from the 1800's back basically (harsh birth conditions, terrible medical practices), and we still could use our mental capacities to dominate our environment with tools.


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## Polednice

Lukecash12 said:


> So, Ravellian's question, as far as I can tell, has to do with whether or not an atheist can *objectively* feel that he/she conducts himself appropriately. If that question can not be answered objectively and in the positive by an atheist, than the atheists who tried to answer it are obligated by intellectual honesty to agree that their morals are subjective and ultimately arbitrary.


If we are going to carry on entering this realm, then I would have to contend that _no person_ - religious or not - can profess to have an objective definition of morality.

Atheists can say that our evolutionarily derived survival instincts create altruism and empathy, but, as there is no external judgement on mankind, psychos can use this as an excuse to feel guiltless when committing immoral acts.

Theists can say that their sense of morals is mandated by a higher being, but these are all _still subjective_, because all scripture is subject to interpretation. Only a divine being itself can know divine will.


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## mmsbls

Lukecash12 said:


> So, Ravellian's question, as far as I can tell, has to do with whether or not an atheist can *objectively* feel that he/she conducts himself appropriately. If that question can not be answered objectively and in the positive by an atheist, than the atheists who tried to answer it are obligated by intellectual honesty to agree that their morals are subjective and ultimately arbitrary.


The first question is to determine what one wishes to achieve through their morals. Most people believe that they _ought_ to reduce pain and suffering. The question then becomes: whose pain and suffering - one's own, one's friends and family, one's species, all sentient beings? Should they all be weighted equally or should some have greater weightings. Furthermore, some would suggest that morality should be focused not just on pain and suffering (negative qualities) but also positive qualities such as furthering knowledge and expanding opportunities. I'm not sure whether anyone or group can definitively answer these questions. But, of course, we must try.

Once one has an answer (or best approach) to the above questions, one can work to learn as much as possible about reality to understand how best to achieve those goals (reducing suffering, expanding knowledge, etc.). This now becomes similar to a scientific study (and some posters have mentioned Sam Harris, who explored this idea in his book, The Moral Landscape). We empirically determine which behaviors best reach our stated goals. Clearly this is not easy, but it is by no means subjective or arbitrary.

The initial determination of the exact goals (and how they are weighted) may ultimately turn out to be somewhat arbitrary. I'm concerned that it may be very difficult to determine the proper weightings. I think that's OK. Almost everyone (who have morals) will be moving in roughly the same behavioral direction, and some variation may spice up life. Since we really have no other choice in determining our moral behavior, we might as well work hard on this path.


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## samurai

My take on it is simply this: As non-believers in an "afterlife", we have even more of an obligation--term it civic, moral, or any other descriptive adjective one wishes to apply--than those who do in fact believe in one to "do the right thing" in this life, because it's the only one we have, at least to the best of our knowledge and "belief". Therefore--by definition--we get only *one* bite of the apple {no pun or religious allusion intended here!}, so we must get it right. There are no "Mulligans" or second chances. *None*.
To my way of thinking, this puts even more pressure on us not to hurt/harm someone unless it is absolutely necessary --as in an act of self-defense or self-preservation--than it does on those who believe that there is in fact a "hereafter".
It's like that ad for Las Vegas: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". As it is applicable here, those words should read: "What we do in this world stays in this world".


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## graaf

samurai said:


> My take on it is simply this: As non-believers in an "afterlife", we have even more of an obligation--term it civic, moral, or any other descriptive adjective one wishes to apply--than those who do in fact believe in one to "do the right thing" in this life, because it's the only one we have, at least to the best of our knowledge and "belief". Therefore--by definition--we get only *one* bite of the apple {no pun or religious allusion intended here!}, so we must get it right. There are no "Mulligans" or second chances. *None*.
> To my way of thinking, this puts even more pressure on us not to hurt/harm someone unless it is absolutely necessary --as in an act of self-defense or self-preservation--than it does on those who believe that there is in fact a "hereafter".
> It's like that ad for Las Vegas: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". As it is applicable here, those words should read: "What we do in this world stays in this world".


That is something that too many people fails to see, that "no afterlife attitude" can produce more compassionate and responsible behaviour than "afterlife theory".

The funny thing is that both worldviews can produce completely opposite outcomes - belief in afterlife can mean striving for good (collecting good deeds for judgement day or something) or not really caring without even noticing that one does not care (this world is false and transitory anyway and "real world" awaits for us) - and so can atheism produce both bad attitude (ex-believer who is not scared of hell anymore and doesn't have any other reason to be good), or good one (this is the only life we get, let's make it worth living because no "better one" awaits us). Like so many other things, it is not about things per se, but about our reaction to it - so you have atheists who are compassionate for they see everything as priceless because it is only one life we get, and religious people who couldn't be compassionate if there was no heaven because nothing would make sense to them.

Since both worldviews can produce both outcomes, it seems to me that the only thing that's different, and which might have some implications to the whole debate, is the way some people perceive themselves to be better than they are - this unfounded belief in one's own moral superiority (not intellectual, or some other, but moral superiority) rarely comes from atheism, and it can have some bad consequences - but that's whole other story.

PS
Careful reader will notice that I didn't say that all religious people tend to think that they are better than others (in fact, some have extremely low self esteem), but offensive reader will be offended whenever he or she feels like it...


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## samurai

@ Graaf, Excellently and succintly put. Well done indeed!


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## Ravellian

Thanks for the Sam Harris recommendations. I watched one of the videos posted here, and he seems to be an extremely intelligent man.



Polednice said:


> The problem your raising is that we have no obligation to be moral and so can ignore our emotions and do bad things. Well, yes. We have altruism, and empathy, and self-preservation as defence mechanisms, but **** happens and people will do bad things without caring for the human consequences. That's just psychopathy.


Yes, I'm assuming that there is a moral right and wrong. My point is that I _don't_ believe it is psycopathy, since we have means of logically justifying these "wrong" actions, which I discussed in the first two pages.



Lukecash12 said:


> Tell me, why is conduct that is conducive of evolution and psychological health important to an atheist, objectively? In a universe that regards us as genome markers and carriers, that doesn't need us to have philosophical triumphs, that doesn't require much more than the interpersonal sociology of us than is exhibited in apes, and is indifferent to things like peaceful, just, and happy (because strife spreads genes, justice inhibits competition, and happiness doesn't sharpen our senses like anger), why is it that an atheist needs to regard justice, peace, and happiness as preferable? There's no actual indicator that it is necessary for evolution, because before we developed superior technology and thus were given the impetus to conduct ourselves in a very sociologically complex world, we still had about the same survival rate from the 1800's back basically (harsh birth conditions, terrible medical practices), and we still could use our mental capacities to dominate our environment with tools.


Exactly. We don't have to survive and evolve as a species by being nice to each other. I think this is what I'm struggling with, and also what I think Dostoevsky was struggling with when he wrote _Notes from Underground_: As far as I understand what he was trying to say, reason is not the ultimate guiding force explaining human behavior, since they may freely choose to act against reason at any time.

Again, this is also what utilitarianism states. It is possible to justify a "wrong" action by reason that it provides more pleasure than pain to the agent, from their perspective. This is perfectly logical reasoning.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Ravellian said:


> Again, this is also what utilitarianism states. It is possible to justify a "wrong" action by reason that it provides more pleasure than pain to the agent, from their perspective. This is perfectly logical reasoning.


Nice to see you keep referring to it. The actions of all rational lindividuals are in fact economic decisions, which many of us don't realise it or view it that way. (Exceptions are those who are clinically insane).

Take for example the economics of being a suicide bomber. The microeconomic economic decision making process of one such bomber can be explained very well, and it goes even further to explain why suicide bombers often tend to be from developing nations, statistically speaking. In a simple framework, the bomber makes a conscious assessment of giving up his own life or not by comparing with _his perception_ of forgoing Earthly satisfaction versus a belief in an afterlife utopian state of some sort. Such a bomber in a developing country for example, would assess that his living standards are rather miserly (poverty, lack of family, lack of employment, lack of consumption/living standards); in essence, the cost of forgoing his Earthly life might seem small in comparison with the promise of utopia afterwards. Hence, he wraps himself up in bombs for destruction. On the other hand, an individual in a developed nation often have, by far, a lot more to live for compared with forgoing it all by blowing himself up, even though he might well believe that his religion would sanction such an act (higher living standards, family, friends, Classical music, golf, horse-riding). This goes to explain why moderate Muslims, for example in Australia, are far less likely to be suicide bombers than another in a shanty town from Pakistan, everything else equal. While the two individuals (the Australian, and the Pakistanian) in this example might well share the same moral and religious views, based on their religion for example, their actions are in fact, much less so.


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## Guest

As my old grandaddy used to say "There's nowt as queer as folk"


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## samurai

Andante said:


> As my old grandaddy used to say "There's nowt as queer as folk"


Huh?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

samurai said:


> Huh?


I think member Andante was suggesting my example was strange. I just picked an interesting one to show how microeconomic decision making on an individual level can be applied to just about anything, including what appears to be about morals (using an extreme example of suicide bombing). I could have picked more mundane activities, such as "shall I walk to the next block by cutting through the park or walk around the park", but that's not a very exciting example.


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## Guest

*@HC* I was not referring to anyone in particular Harpy just observing that we are a complicated and unfathomably species on the whole, but I said it in a northern English accent which may have confused Sammy. lol


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## samurai

Andante said:


> *@HC* I was not referring to anyone in particular Harpy just observing that we are a complicated and unfathomably species on the whole, but I said it in a northern English accent which may have confused Sammy. lol


I get confused very easily these days! :lol:


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## myaskovsky2002

*I just keep THIS in mind*



Ravellian said:


> I'm in one of my philosophical moods today, bear with me...
> 
> I am a declared atheist and I always will be, since it seems obvious to me that it is simply not rational to adhere to any religion. However, atheism creates a problem. Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem. We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:
> 
> 1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.
> 
> Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*
> 
> My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?


*What goes around comes around *

I believe in God, but this is not important..it is rather what I've just said...again:

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. It is reason enough for doing good things. You can't imagine how true this is...



Martin


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## samurai

myaskovsky2002 said:


> *What goes around comes around *
> 
> I believe in God, but this is not important..it is rather what I've just said...again:
> 
> WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. It is reason enough for doing good things. You can't imagine how true is this.
> 
> 
> 
> Martin


Very well put, Martin and a great re-phrasing of the "*Golden* *Rule*".


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## Guest

*@myaskovsky* Martin do you reall live in Montreal ??


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## Couchie

Lukecash12 said:


> Tell me, why is conduct that is conducive of evolution and psychological health important to an atheist, objectively? In a universe that regards us as genome markers and carriers, that doesn't need us to have philosophical triumphs, that doesn't require much more than the interpersonal sociology of us than is exhibited in apes, and is indifferent to things like peaceful, just, and happy (because strife spreads genes, justice inhibits competition, and happiness doesn't sharpen our senses like anger), why is it that an atheist needs to regard justice, peace, and happiness as preferable? There's no actual indicator that it is necessary for evolution, because before we developed superior technology and thus were given the impetus to conduct ourselves in a very sociologically complex world, we still had about the same survival rate from the 1800's back basically (harsh birth conditions, terrible medical practices), and we still could use our mental capacities to dominate our environment with tools.


Well unlike theists, I do not claim to know the will of the universe or of any deities above it, so I can't comment on what is important for any objective purposes. It is wrong to even assume that "universe that regards us as genome markers and carriers", there no evidence to suppose that the universe at all regards us.

_Subjectively_, it is very obvious that a world with fair and sustainable morals is preferable to amoral chaos. Whether it is nature or nurture, we simply _do_ prefer justice, peace, and happiness. These things all have their evolutionary usefulness: empathy for parents to protect the genes in their offspring, for groups of the same species to look out for each other, peace to reduce the incidence of being killed, and without happiness or pleasure organisms have no neurological incentive to make the choice to fight to stay alive.

At any rate, I can not tell you exactly how or why the "Golden Rule" of treat others how you would like to be treated is innate in humans, only that it is innate, and does not need religion: the additional moral layers added by religion are at best superfluous, and at worst (in the case of the Abrahamic religions), compromise this natural morality and make the world a worse place.


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## mmsbls

Ravellian said:


> Exactly. We don't have to survive and evolve as a species by being nice to each other. I think this is what I'm struggling with, and also what I think Dostoevsky was struggling with when he wrote _Notes from Underground_: As far as I understand what he was trying to say, reason is not the ultimate guiding force explaining human behavior, since they may freely choose to act against reason at any time.
> 
> Again, this is also what utilitarianism states. It is possible to justify a "wrong" action by reason that it provides more pleasure than pain to the agent, from their perspective. This is perfectly logical reasoning.


Evolutionary psychologists would agree that we don't have to survive and evolve as a species by being nice to each other, but they would say that apparently those who were nice or at least modestly altruistic had more offspring. They talk of evolutionary strategies for behavior. One such strategy is know as a defector - someone who always takes advantage of others. Another strategy is cooperator - one who always helps others. They especially like the strategy known as reciprocal altruism - be nice to me and I'll be nice to you. Studies have shown that reciprocal altruism is an especially potent strategy. Reciprocal altruists do better in the struggle of life than pure cooperators or pure defectors and in theory leave more offspring.

While more research needs to be done to understand behavioral strategies, the research to date suggests that we all inherited the propensity to be nice to others when they are nice to us. If we defect (don't help others), we will suffer consequences (less help from others). Humans are a very social species with individuals interacting often with other individuals. Our interactions are noted by others, and those who do not cooperate tend to suffer in the long run.

One can rationalize defecting, but it is a short term strategy. Defectors don't benefit as much from society as reciprocal altruists _in general_. Obviously there are those who defect more than others, and they don't always lose in the long run. Society is made up of a large number of individuals most, but not all, behave as reciprocal altruists.


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## myaskovsky2002

Andante said:


> *@myaskovsky* Martin do you reall live in Montreal ??


LOL...Yes why?

Martin


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## Lukecash12

Couchie said:


> Well unlike theists, I do not claim to know the will of the universe or of any deities above it, so I can't comment on what is important for any objective purposes. It is wrong to even assume that "universe that regards us as genome markers and carriers", there no evidence to suppose that the universe at all regards us.
> 
> _Subjectively_, it is very obvious that a world with fair and sustainable morals is preferable to amoral chaos. Whether it is nature or nurture, we simply _do_ prefer justice, peace, and happiness. These things all have their evolutionary usefulness: empathy for parents to protect the genes in their offspring, for groups of the same species to look out for each other, peace to reduce the incidence of being killed, and without happiness or pleasure organisms have no neurological incentive to make the choice to fight to stay alive.
> 
> At any rate, I can not tell you exactly how or why the "Golden Rule" of treat others how you would like to be treated is innate in humans, only that it is innate, and does not need religion: the additional moral layers added by religion are at best superfluous, and at worst (in the case of the Abrahamic religions), compromise this natural morality and make the world a worse place.


1. You're right. I didn't mean to anthropomorphize the universe as if it has a logos/will or pneumati/intellect. However, I meant that as a Sophist sort of argument, because people who establish their morals according to what is evolutionarily efficient, are maybe anthropomorphizing the universe.

2. _Subjectively_, nothing is obvious because nothing is at all evident. But what is evident, according to the dialogue you are inviting, is that the parental empathy you refer to, and the small group sociology you refer to, is not always the case. Just like we can observe with apes, anthropologically speaking a clan or other simple community does not inhibit aggressive silver-back behavior all that much. In fact, it needs it. In third world countries we can observe some pretty tough parenting, too.

3. How can you observe this "Golden Rule" to be innate, when you haven't the foggiest idea why or how it is? Would you mind telling us all how Golden Age Attic Greece, Bedouin nomadic Egypt, Buschman Saharan Africa, Swahili and Zulu Africa (with their brutal ritualism expected of men, and examples of hard parenting), Amazonian Southern America (great paternal competition and often brutal treatment of foreigners), and Papau New Guinea (with it's blood feuds, demonism, and drug induced hysteria), happen to follow the same "Golden Rule" of treat others how you would like to be treated? Would you like to have your head cut off and shrunk, or to end up in a blood feud because of a mere accident?


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## Polednice

Ravellian said:


> Yes, I'm assuming that there is a moral right and wrong. My point is that I _don't_ believe it is psycopathy, since we have means of logically justifying these "wrong" actions, which I discussed in the first two pages.


_You_ believe that perhaps because _you're_ a psycho?!

We can use wily casuistry to rationalise immoral behaviours, but every thought process you have provided is _not_ 'logical justification'.

Again, just for the sake of argument, you keep furthering a hollow idea that I don't think even you fully understand - you went on to say that Dostoevsky was trying to say how reason is _not_ the driving force of our species, which would go exactly _against_ the point you're making. Of course cerebral justifications of our actions are not our driving force - it is our base instincts of empathy and survival that, though we don't always know they are driving us, do drive us constantly.


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## Ravellian

mmsbls said:


> Evolutionary psychologists would agree that we don't have to survive and evolve as a species by being nice to each other, but they would say that apparently those who were nice or at least modestly altruistic had more offspring. They talk of evolutionary strategies for behavior. One such strategy is know as a defector - someone who always takes advantage of others. Another strategy is cooperator - one who always helps others. They especially like the strategy known as reciprocal altruism - be nice to me and I'll be nice to you. Studies have shown that reciprocal altruism is an especially potent strategy. Reciprocal altruists do better in the struggle of life than pure cooperators or pure defectors and in theory leave more offspring.
> 
> While more research needs to be done to understand behavioral strategies, the research to date suggests that we all inherited the propensity to be nice to others when they are nice to us. If we defect (don't help others), we will suffer consequences (less help from others). Humans are a very social species with individuals interacting often with other individuals. Our interactions are noted by others, and those who do not cooperate tend to suffer in the long run.
> 
> One can rationalize defecting, but it is a short term strategy. Defectors don't benefit as much from society as reciprocal altruists _in general_. Obviously there are those who defect more than others, and they don't always lose in the long run. Society is made up of a large number of individuals most, but not all, behave as reciprocal altruists.


Well, do you have links to said studies? I'd like to take a look at this data.

I also probably shouldn't have brought up Dostoevsky. I think I might have confused myself a little bit there, it's actually not relevant to this discussion.


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## Guest

Although I claimed I wasn't going to post again, I've been following the discussions, and this one was just interesting enough to spur me to participate.

Disclaimer up front - you all know I am a religious person.

One thing I think that needs to be stipulated before anything else, before getting into motivations, is that clearly all beings are capable of making "moral" decisions. I don't know what the worldwide breakdown is between religious/atheist, but based on the fact that at any given moment, most people on this planet are not in the process of doing harm to others, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that everybody is capable of peacefully co-existing with other members of the species, regardless of their convictions vis-a-vis a higher power. So religious people, I think it is pointless to act from the perspective that atheists cannot act in a manner that we consider "moral," because obviously a great many do.

It all comes down to where the motivation comes from, not whether the action is possible. Are our brains hard-wired due to millenia of evolutionary changes to "feel" the being nice to others is the better route to go to ensure our survival and general well-being? From a purely scientific perspective, I think there is some strength to that. It is demonstrably true that life is more secure and there are more possible opportunities open to individuals as they join together in societies. They are able to move beyond subsistence survival, they can better provide protection, they can share knowledge, or educate one another, making the society as a whole stronger than any of its individual parts. All of these factors are surely preferrable to solitary existence. And clearly the ability to get along with others is critical to such societal interactions. So if psychology can evolve, along with other more tangible, physical traits, I think there is weight to this argument, that higher beings would evolve the behavioral patterns that best promote their survival.

But their seems to be something different about human morals than whatever else would be analogous in other species. Evolution is amoral - if you take a higher power out of the question, then evolution has no agenda. It is simply a force, like gravity. It acts in a certain way. Certain preferrable characteristics that confer advantages are selected for, and those which provide no benefit are either ignored, if they are benign, or eliminated, if deleterious. So we know that lower species also frequently form societies/groups - for greater protection, for division of labor, for whatever reason that helps them survive better than living alone - greater access to sexual partners to produce offspring, whatever. But they still exhibit some actions that seem cruel to us, but not in the realm of evolution. The weak are often left on their own. The sick are not tended to. So why do we as humans expend exorbitant amounts of money to care for untold numbers of individuals who are either to sick to further contribute to the greater society, or possess genetic characteristics that make them undesirable in the greater scheme of furthering the species? Why do we care for our elderly that can no longer contribute? I'm not talking about the easy questions here, why an atheist won't go out and do harm if they don't believe in a punishment from a higher power? Those are easy. They don't do it, because it degrades the society, makes it more difficult for society to exist, which then means their lives become more difficult. And, there is also the concern over consequences - maybe not eternal consequences, but consequences, none the less. If this is their only shot at existence, what is the point in spending a significant portion of it incarcerated, or having it shortened by the death penalty?

A few side notes, and I am not going to turn this into a religious discussion, but:
For those who have perpetuated this image of religious people (particularly those who adhere to one of the Abrahamic religions) only doing good for fear of divine retribution, stop. As I said, our actions are the same, just the motivation differs. Do atheists decline to murder because they don't want to hurt others, or because they fear the consequences? Am I to believe that atheists only do good because they fear the earthly consequences? If not, then why ascribe such motives to Christians? Can it be that Christians choose to act morally, not because they don't want eternal punishment, but rather because they want to proactively lead good lives? It is the same flawed argument as the idea that if heroin were to be made legal, suddenly we would have an epidemic of heroin addicts. 

There will always be those, religious or atheist, who don't commit amoral acts simply because there are punishments afixed to those acts. But I believe that the vast majority act morally because they want to.


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## Polednice

DrMike, is it too simple to say that we do things other species do not - taking care of the terminally ill and elderly, for example - for precisely the same sense of reciprocal altruism that motivates the charitable deeds we do share with 'lesser' species? I imagine it is our higher level of consciousness and ability to imagine ourselves experiencing the plights of others that furthers this altruistic sense. Nothing else seems necessary to me...


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> DrMike, is it too simple to say that we do things other species do not - taking care of the terminally ill and elderly, for example - for precisely the same sense of reciprocal altruism that motivates the charitable deeds we do share with 'lesser' species? I imagine it is our higher level of consciousness and ability to imagine ourselves experiencing the plights of others that furthers this altruistic sense. Nothing else seems necessary to me...


It may very well be, but whence comes altruism? I can understand activities that benefit others but also primarily benefit the individual acting. But where there is no benefit to the individual, or possibly even deleterious effects on the individual or individuals due to an altruistic action, whence comes that motivation? What is the selective advantage? It seems we are swimming against the current, in terms of selective advantages. It maybe generates good feelings in us to help the helpless, but there are obviously downsides to helping such individuals - increasing costs for helping those who no longer contribute to the society, which have obvious economic impacts (as we now see); overpopulation and the increasing scarcity of resources which in the long term will lead to shortages and a culling of the population, including more healthy individuals; etc.

So faced with the much larger, more catastrophic impact that this altruism in us can generate, versus the relatively smaller impact of abandoning our weak and elderly, why would the altruistic nature have been the one to emerge, and become the norm in our species? What is it about our human conscience that should make this so? Something that seems so irrational? Some of the leading minds in evolutionary biology talk about means of population control - easier access to abortion, even allowing for the killing of infants after they have been born, euthanasia of the terminally ill and suffering, selective abortions of this with genetic abnormalities, or even the mostly discredited and abandoned notions of eugenics that were popular during the early part of the 20th century, with much scientific/rational support. And yet we fly in the face of the dispassionate, rational notions. Why? How would such ideas have been perpetuated? And are they a greater good, in terms of the survival of our species? Or do they lead to problems like climate change, overpopulation, depletion of resources?

What leads us to do things for some altruistic greater good that ultimately is not of benefit to the society at large from a purely rational, evolutionary standpoint?


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## Guest

I guess the bigger question I am trying to get at is this - and I am not meaning to imply that at some point all atheists should eventually accept some higher power:

At what point is evolution no longer sufficient to explain how we are what we are today? Note I am not asking when you will no longer believe in evolution - rather the question is when is evolution essential, but no longer sufficient, to generate the level of complexity we are at today? I understand the arguments for physical evolution, and the evidence for it. But when we get into psychological evolution, how advanced is that field? Is it purely theoretical, or is there actual physical evidence, as there is for biological evolution? When we get to the intangibles of the human conscience, have we reached the point where evolution is essential to explain how we got to where we are today, but not sufficient to explain all that we are?

In physics, scientists plumb every deeper for impossibly small particles, but ultimately there is the potential for observing them. But what of the human mind? Will scientists find the "conscience" gene? We have decoded the human genome, and scientists are working to identify the functions of all the genes identified. What if we finally identify them all, and can account for them all, and nothing is left over to explain our conscious actions? Will we have reached that critical point? Where do our actions come from? Maybe they are learned, but that does not explain the numerous examples of people acting contrary to their learning. All that we gain, biologically, from our parents, is genetic material. Can thoughts be transmitted in sperm and ova? Ideas? Have we reached the limit of what evolution can explain?

That is not an attack on evolution - to say that a theory has its limits is not the same as to discredit it. Newtonian physics has its limits, but within its sphere, it is fully in control. That it can't encompass the greater aspects of relativity does not imply that it is false.


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## Polednice

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not going to enter a discussion about the validity of evolution. It doesn't have anything to do with the OP.


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## Almaviva

Welcome back, DrMike, and thanks for these thoughtful contributions to the debate!:tiphat:


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## Philip

DrMike said:


> I guess the bigger question I am trying to get at is this - and I am not meaning to imply that at some point all atheists should eventually accept some higher power:
> 
> At what point is evolution no longer sufficient to explain how we are what we are today? Note I am not asking when you will no longer believe in evolution - rather the question is when is evolution essential, but no longer sufficient, to generate the level of complexity we are at today? I understand the arguments for physical evolution, and the evidence for it. But when we get into psychological evolution, how advanced is that field? Is it purely theoretical, or is there actual physical evidence, as there is for biological evolution? When we get to the intangibles of the human conscience, have we reached the point where evolution is essential to explain how we got to where we are today, but not sufficient to explain all that we are?
> 
> In physics, scientists plumb every deeper for impossibly small particles, but ultimately there is the potential for observing them. But what of the human mind? Will scientists find the "conscience" gene? We have decoded the human genome, and scientists are working to identify the functions of all the genes identified. What if we finally identify them all, and can account for them all, and nothing is left over to explain our conscious actions? Will we have reached that critical point? Where do our actions come from? Maybe they are learned, but that does not explain the numerous examples of people acting contrary to their learning. All that we gain, biologically, from our parents, is genetic material. Can thoughts be transmitted in sperm and ova? Ideas? Have we reached the limit of what evolution can explain?
> 
> That is not an attack on evolution - to say that a theory has its limits is not the same as to discredit it. Newtonian physics has its limits, but within its sphere, it is fully in control. That it can't encompass the greater aspects of relativity does not imply that it is false.


so basically you're saying: where science ends, god begins?


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## Guest

Philip said:


> so basically you're saying: where science ends, god begins?


Well, that is my belief, personally, but that isn't what I am asking. I am probing for the opinion of the atheist.

It seems to me that far to many people who rely on evolution to explain how we have come to be what we are rely almost too much on evolution, and ascribe more powers to it than we have evidence it possesses. Can we really inherit ideas? That is not knocking evolution, but simply asking can it really do all people seem to imply it can? I understand the evidence that explains how, physically, humans came to be on this earth. But how did the conscience come to be? While we certainly have numerous traits in common with lower species, what explains the differences? It seems almost a copout to just knee-jerk reply "evolution" to every question - almost as silly as I'm sure the appeal to a higher power by religious people must seem to atheists everytime we approach an area we can't explain.

What I am trying to get at is this - for those studying this and looking for an explanation beyond that of a higher power, are there broader areas of study into these questions then simply trying to stretch the powers of evolution further than they currently are? Is the "tent" of evolution large enough to encompass areas such as the existence of human behavior and psychology, or are people searching for other explanations?


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## Guest

Almaviva said:


> *Welcome back*, DrMike, and thanks for these thoughtful contributions to the debate!:tiphat:


Only on a provisional basis.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> so basically you're saying: where science ends, god begins?


And notice my analogy of Newtonian physics. I am not saying where science ends, god begins - I am asking, where current science ends, where will it begin again? Is there a search for a higher explanation? Another scientific theory that may work in a complimentary fashion with evolution, or even synergistically? Just as the Theory of Relativity fills in the gaps where Newtonian physics breaks down, what is it that fills a similar purpose within the realm of biology, to explain the things that evolution alone cannot? Or is it the belief that evolution can explain the more complex issues regarding our minds? Are we different from other animals simply because our brains fire a little differently than theirs? If it is a matter of evolution, then would identical twins be expected to behave absolutely identically in all of the same situations? Could you have, among identical twins, one be a serial killer and one be a pacifist? If not, why?


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## Philip

Philip said:


> so basically you're saying: where science ends, god begins?





DrMike said:


> Well, that is my belief, personally, but that isn't what I am asking. I am probing for the opinion of the atheist.
> 
> It seems to me that far to many people who rely on evolution to explain how we have come to be what we are rely almost too much on evolution, and ascribe more powers to it than we have evidence it possesses. Can we really inherit ideas? That is not knocking evolution, but simply asking can it really do all people seem to imply it can? I understand the evidence that explains how, physically, humans came to be on this earth. But how did the conscience come to be? While we certainly have numerous traits in common with lower species, what explains the differences? It seems almost a copout to just knee-jerk reply "evolution" to every question - almost as silly as I'm sure the appeal to a higher power by religious people must seem to atheists everytime we approach an area we can't explain.
> 
> What I am trying to get at is this - for those studying this and looking for an explanation beyond that of a higher power, are there broader areas of study into these questions then simply trying to stretch the powers of evolution further than they currently are? Is the "tent" of evolution large enough to encompass areas such as the existence of human behavior and psychology, or are people searching for other explanations?


OK, but where science ends... isn't that also where speculation begins? plus the "tent" of science grows everyday...


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## Polednice

Warning! Warning! Beware of fallacy: God of the Gaps.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> OK, but where science ends... isn't that also where speculation begins? plus the "tent" of science grows everyday...


The tent of science grows every day, but not individual theories. And isn't all science, at least initially, speculative, until data can be amassed? What is an hypothesis but a speculation - albeit an informed speculation?

Surely atheists speculate - you can't merely live in a world where observations and data alone rule your life, because there are too many unknowns. It is just that your speculation is towards more scientific explanations rather than spiritual/religious ones. And that is all I am asking here. Where is the speculation here? All I am suggesting is that evolution may not explain these concepts. A religious person would likely give a religious, God-based explanation. As a religious person, I already know what I think. I am trying to understand what the atheist thinks. Does the explanation of evolution satisfy your curiosity in explaining these concepts, or is there the willingness to accept that evolution will not explain everything, and if so, what would be some of those speculations?

I am not trying to lead anybody into a rhetorical trap, trying to get them to concede the existence of God. I am simply trying to understand what a non-religious person thinks in this respect. And I think I have been pretty explicit in my statements that I am not steering this in a religious direction.


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## Couchie

Lukecash12 said:


> 2. _Subjectively_, nothing is obvious because nothing is at all evident. But what is evident, according to the dialogue you are inviting, is that the parental empathy you refer to, and the small group sociology you refer to, is not always the case. Just like we can observe with apes, anthropologically speaking a clan or other simple community does not inhibit aggressive silver-back behavior all that much. In fact, it needs it. In third world countries we can observe some pretty tough parenting, too.
> 
> 3. How can you observe this "Golden Rule" to be innate, when you haven't the foggiest idea why or how it is? Would you mind telling us all how Golden Age Attic Greece, Bedouin nomadic Egypt, Buschman Saharan Africa, Swahili and Zulu Africa (with their brutal ritualism expected of men, and examples of hard parenting), Amazonian Southern America (great paternal competition and often brutal treatment of foreigners), and Papau New Guinea (with it's blood feuds, demonism, and drug induced hysteria), happen to follow the same "Golden Rule" of treat others how you would like to be treated? Would you like to have your head cut off and shrunk, or to end up in a blood feud because of a mere accident?


Even in the most primitive and brutal societies, you can see some level of the golden rule being applied, the fact that they form tribes is evidence enough. Let's not forget much of the brutality stems from religious and ritualistic practices, which is my central point. Haven't the foggiest idea? We don't need to know the exact mechanism of how empathy evolved to know it evolved. We can observe neurological evidence (ie. mirror neurones), or the fact that empathy and principles of the "golden rule" have been observed in animals: dolphins, primates, even mice. I think it is unlikely that dolphins received a set of commandments from god to behave this way. The "golden rule" principle is central to many religions, since I doubt you believe in any gods beside your own Christian God, you too must admit that the source of morality for all these religions could not have come from authentic divine command, but rather the fundamental "golden rule" morality is natural, and that was added by _people_ into _religion_, not the other way around. I go one religion further, and include yours.


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## Polednice

DrMike, as an atheist considering your question, I can tell you that my own response would be: "I simply do not know the answer and, though curious, I am not in such dire need of an explanation that I will resort to a supernatural agent."


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## clavichorder

Ravellian said:


> Well I've always had trouble feeling empathy, in fact I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was younger. But in any case, we have no inherent obligation to feel empathy for others, correct? I find empathy to be a hindrance more often than not; people worry too much about how other people's feelings were hurt by something, etc.. most of the time if somebody's hurt by something it's their own fault anyway, and I think they should just get over with it and move on. Only the strong survive, as they say!


Ravellian, I think there is hope. It is a constant struggle for me with feeling like I do not have adequate empathy for others. I also was diagnosed with aspergers as a teen though I doubt its legitimacy. Remember my thread on personality disorders? That was an indirect testing the waters with my fear of being a narcissist. I've tried to be certain that I am not a narcissist. or accept it if I have such tendencies, but no one I know seems to complain about me being selfish, so if there is anything wrong with me in that regard, it is highly covert. I do have asperger traits though, still, I _sympathetically_ feel your pain over wonder about empathy. So you aren't alone.

One article I read a while back said that many men tend to become more empathetic with age as testosterone decreases. I find that hopeful.

I struggled with a dilemna regarding violent thoughts a while ago, but I went to therapy and felt liberated to hear that these were just thoughts, that were coming up because I had a mental trap set for myself of trying not to think them and wondering if I was a bad person for thinking them in an OCDish manner.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> DrMike, as an atheist considering your question, I can tell you that my own response would be: "I simply do not know the answer and, though curious, I am not in such dire need of an explanation that I will resort to a supernatural agent."


Fair enough. Again, not trying to trap you into conceding the existence of God, or even to a tacit admission.

In science, though, I am frequently faced with questions, particularly when I give talks, where people will go beyond the level of what is known, and while they won't necessarily expect me to have the definitive answer, they will want to know what I speculate. In these situations, I could say "I do not know," but they would respect my answer better were I to say, "We currently don't know enough to explain . . . but based on what we do know, I think . . . ."

And I accept that there are those who don't feel that the speculation is necessary. It exists in religion as well. There are those who are content with the answers given, and are in no dire need of an explanation, while others, even though they believe, still like to ask why. So much is made of the differences between those who believe in God/higher power and those who do not that some of the basic similarities are often overlooked. We are all interested in the same questions, we simply differ in where we are willing to look for the answers.


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## Polednice

Strict empathy in terms of being able to imagine another's point of view is obviously not the only thing at play here as I know someone with Asperger's extremely well and I can think of few people as caring and humane!


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> Fair enough. Again, not trying to trap you into conceding the existence of God, or even to a tacit admission.
> 
> In science, though, I am frequently faced with questions, particularly when I give talks, where people will go beyond the level of what is known, and while they won't necessarily expect me to have the definitive answer, they will want to know what I speculate. In these situations, I could say "I do not know," but they would respect my answer better were I to say, "We currently don't know enough to explain . . . but based on what we do know, I think . . . ."
> 
> And I accept that there are those who don't feel that the speculation is necessary. It exists in religion as well. There are those who are content with the answers given, and are in no dire need of an explanation, while others, even though they believe, still like to ask why. So much is made of the differences between those who believe in God/higher power and those who do not that some of the basic similarities are often overlooked. We are all interested in the same questions, we simply differ in where we are willing to look for the answers.


I'm still intrigued, I'm still fascinated, I'm still on the perpetual search for explanation, but, on this particular issue, I am nowhere near educated enough, so it would be big-headed of me to try to give you proper speculation.


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## Philip

DrMike said:


> The tent of science grows every day, but not individual theories. And isn't all science, at least initially, speculative, until data can be amassed? What is an hypothesis but a speculation - albeit an informed speculation?
> 
> Surely atheists speculate - you can't merely live in a world where observations and data alone rule your life, because there are too many unknowns. It is just that your speculation is towards more scientific explanations rather than spiritual/religious ones. And that is all I am asking here. Where is the speculation here? All I am suggesting is that evolution may not explain these concepts. A religious person would likely give a religious, God-based explanation. As a religious person, I already know what I think. I am trying to understand what the atheist thinks. Does the explanation of evolution satisfy your curiosity in explaining these concepts, or is there the willingness to accept that evolution will not explain everything, and if so, what would be some of those speculations?
> 
> I am not trying to lead anybody into a rhetorical trap, trying to get them to concede the existence of God. I am simply trying to understand what a non-religious person thinks in this respect. And I think I have been pretty explicit in my statements that I am not steering this in a religious direction.


what i meant by "speculation" is more precisely an unfalsifiable statement, ie. a metaphysical statement. a hypothesis is by definition falsifiable and thus a scientific statement. for example, as mentioned by graaf in another thread, the idea of an orbiting teapot in space (Russell's teapot) cannot be proven wrong, hence it is metaphysical (not scientific). on the other hand, a statement like: "all swans are white", which might seem speculative, is indeed scientific, for it can be proven wrong by finding a single black swan. (this view is outlined by Popper in the The Logic of Scientific Discovery)


----------



## Fsharpmajor

DrMike said:


> would identical twins be expected to behave absolutely identically in all of the same situations? Could you have, among identical twins, one be a serial killer and one be a pacifist?


Identical twins do tend to behave similarly, but if they're raised separately, one in a good, caring family, and the other in a violent, abusive family, this might well happen. Genetics doesn't account for everything. Nurture is at least as important as nature, in my opinion. Maybe some people are born to be good, and some are born to be bad, no matter what their upbringing, but in most cases the truth will lie somewhere in between.

We have a good animal model in the form of the domestic dog. If you mistreat a dog as a puppy, it will grow up to be a nasty adult which bites people. If you treat it well, it will be loyal and affectionate. If you treat it well, and also train it well, it will be both of those, and also protective and useful.

A dog is neither atheist nor religious, but it is capable of altruistic behaviour, and it is capable of displaying guilt when it has done something that you tried to train it not to do. Because we have directed their evolution for centuries, dogs are simplified versions of us.

Just my thoughts as a reductionist who tries to answer a question by eliminating as many variables as possible.


----------



## Guest

Fsharpmajor said:


> Identical twins do tend to behave similarly, but if they're raised separately, one in a good, caring family, and the other in a violent, abusive family, this might well happen. Genetics doesn't account for everything. Nurture is at least as important as nature, in my opinion. Maybe some people are born to be good, and some are born to be bad, no matter what their upbringing, but in most cases the truth will lie somewhere in between.
> 
> We have a good animal model in the form of the domestic dog. If you mistreat a dog as a puppy, it will grow up to be a nasty adult which bites people. If you treat it well, it will be loyal and affectionate. If you treat it well, and also train it well, it will be both of those, and also protective and useful.
> 
> A dog is neither atheist nor religious, but it is capable of altruistic behaviour, and it is capable of displaying guilt when it has done something that you tried to train it not to do. Because we have directed their evolution for centuries, dogs are simplified versions of us.
> 
> Just my thoughts as a reductionist who tries to answer a question by eliminating as many variables as possible.


But how reproducible is the reaction in the dog? If it is constantly beaten as a pup, will it always grow up to be aggressive and mean? Or if it is treated affectionately, will it always grow up to be affectionate? And is this the same in humans? We have numerous examples of people born to horrendous circumstances who nevertheless grow up to be quite admirable people. Again, I am fully aware that altruistic behavior is not limited to any one group discernible by belief in a higher power. But clearly humans can act against their training. To what degree this also occurs in the other members of the animal kingdom, I am not sure.

I believe that humans have an innate revulsion to cruelty and brutality. I am satisfied with the religious answer I have for this, but I don't preclude the possibility that the God I believe in can act within scientific methods and according to scientific laws. So although I believe in God, I am also interested in scientific explanations for phenomena. And this one in particular intrigues me. What is the conscience. We all seem to have one. Chemical reactions and the sheer instinct for survival alone don't seem to explain sufficiently why we behave the way we do. So what is it? What, for example, would drive a person to sacrifice their life to save another? Or, for that matter, how have we even come to the point where we can contemplate such questions? What in our natural history has developed to make such things possible? Not a metaphysical question, but a scientific one. It is clearly something we all have - it isn't magically bestowed only on those who profess religious beliefs. Religion helps guide actions, it doesn't produce new actions ex nihilo.

How can someone be born good or bad - or, even avoiding those terms, born sociopathic or one who interacts positively with others? Is it enzymatic reactions? Are there goods ones and bad ones? I admit that, as a diabetic, when my blood sugars are off, it can influence my behavior, make me more irritable, etc. But I don't think it would drive me to sociopathic behavior. And if that is aberrant behavior, what establishes the proper behavior? How can a series of chemical reactions create in me a revulsion to doing ill to others?


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> What is the conscience.


I'm afraid you've come a few centuries too early for a scientific response to that.


----------



## clavichorder

Polednice said:


> I'm afraid you've come a few centuries too early for a scientific response to that.


You sure? I think they have some vague idea that it has its physical basis in how your mirror neurons are wired to your prefrontal cortex.


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## clavichorder

DrMike said:


> How can a series of chemical reactions create in me a revulsion to doing ill to others?


How can a series of chemical reactions allow for any number of complex cognitive processes? Its not something fully understood at this point.


----------



## Polednice

clavichorder said:


> You sure? I think they have some vague idea that it has its physical basis in how your mirror neurons are wired to your prefrontal cortex.


But DrMike is pretty much pushing for a chemical explanation of absolutely everything that a human might ever say, think, or do. If we had even a pretty solid idea on the basis of mirror neurons wired to the prefrontal cortex, there would still be certain incomplete areas, and DrMike would be probing those instead.


----------



## Philip

DrMike said:


> But how reproducible is the reaction in the dog? If it is constantly beaten as a pup, will it always grow up to be aggressive and mean? Or if it is treated affectionately, will it always grow up to be affectionate? And is this the same in humans? We have numerous examples of people born to horrendous circumstances who nevertheless grow up to be quite admirable people. Again, I am fully aware that altruistic behavior is not limited to any one group discernible by belief in a higher power. But clearly humans can act against their training. To what degree this also occurs in the other members of the animal kingdom, I am not sure.
> 
> I believe that humans have an innate revulsion to cruelty and brutality. I am satisfied with the religious answer I have for this, but I don't preclude the possibility that the God I believe in can act within scientific methods and according to scientific laws. So although I believe in God, I am also interested in scientific explanations for phenomena. And this one in particular intrigues me. What is the conscience. We all seem to have one. Chemical reactions and the sheer instinct for survival alone don't seem to explain sufficiently why we behave the way we do. So what is it? What, for example, would drive a person to sacrifice their life to save another? Or, for that matter, how have we even come to the point where we can contemplate such questions? What in our natural history has developed to make such things possible? Not a metaphysical question, but a scientific one. It is clearly something we all have - it isn't magically bestowed only on those who profess religious beliefs. Religion helps guide actions, it doesn't produce new actions ex nihilo.
> 
> How can someone be born good or bad - or, even avoiding those terms, born sociopathic or one who interacts positively with others? Is it enzymatic reactions? Are there goods ones and bad ones? I admit that, as a diabetic, when my blood sugars are off, it can influence my behavior, make me more irritable, etc. But I don't think it would drive me to sociopathic behavior. And if that is aberrant behavior, what establishes the proper behavior? How can a series of chemical reactions create in me a revulsion to doing ill to others?


man... honestly, DrMike, you should restrict yourself to asking only one question per post. quite frankly, i think you're asking the wrong questions (and no, they are not scientific), and you're looking for answers at the wrong place. some of your ideas are just as relevant as:

why do i like bacon? was i born with the desire for bacon? what is the scientific explanation for my love of bacon? if no explanation is thorough enough to motivate my love for bacon, does God have anything to do with bacon? ...it doesn't make sense brother!!!

*bacon is just delicious*!


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## HerlockSholmes

Philip said:


> man... honestly, DrMike, you should restrict yourself to asking only one question per post. quite frankly, i think you're asking the wrong questions (and no, they are not scientific), and you're looking for answers at the wrong place. some of your ideas are just as relevant as:
> 
> why do i like bacon? was i born with the desire for bacon? what is the scientific explanation for my love of bacon? if no explanation is thorough enough to motivate my love for bacon, does God have anything to do with bacon? ...it doesn't make sense brother!!!
> 
> *bacon is just delicious*!


The same could be said about not-so-sweet-and-wholesome things. Such as:
Why do I like eating people's intestines? Was I born with the desire for eating intestines? What is the scientific explanation for my love of intestines? If no explanation is thorough enough to motivate my love for intestines, does God have anything to do with intestines? . . . It doesn't make sense brother!
Intestines!

Wait, is Dr. Mike a deist or is he subscribed to an organized religion?


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## Polednice

HerlockSholmes said:


> Wait, is Dr. Mike a deist or is he subscribed to an organized religion?


Mormon if I remember correctly...


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## HerlockSholmes

Polednice said:


> Mormon if I remember correctly...


Oh . . .

In that case, my post wasn't completely irrelevant.


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## Fsharpmajor

I don't think there's any excuse for treating DrMike with flippant one-liners about him being a Mormon, when he's asking serious, intelligent questions about the nature of human morality.

Whether or not we atheists *agree* with him, he has accorded more respect to us than we have given him.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Fsharpmajor said:


> I don't think there's any excuse for treating DrMike with flippant one-liners about him being a Mormon, when he's asking serious, intelligent questions about the nature of human morality.
> 
> Whether or not we atheists *agree* with him, he has accorded more respect to us than we have given him.


While I do agree that all different beliefs should be equally respected, an argument about biology and psychology on a classical music forum should _never_ be taken seriously to begin with. This whole thing is ridiculous.
And by the way, this thread has already been derailed enough already. It might as well be locked by a moderator or something.


----------



## clavichorder

How is it that threads even continue to get derailed like this? Its so reliable to happen, and I don't think I've ever really gotten involved in such a process. What interested me about this post was what Ravellian was saying about his personal moral struggles. We're so obsessed with certain dogged categories of hypotheticals here.


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## Polednice

I will say that quite early on, I did attempt to keep people on topic and away from religious debate, so it's all YOUR fault!


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## Head_case

HerlockSholmes said:


> While I do agree that all different beliefs should be equally respected, an argument about biology and psychology on a classical music forum should _never_ be taken seriously to begin with. This whole thing is ridiculous.


Sherlock,
I'm wondering, why a discussion on religion and philosophy, should be taken any more seriously than a discussion on biology and psychology.

Why is there a politically correct imperative ... to respect different beliefs equally?

Beliefs can only be respected according to their merits: not some substantive or overarching principle, that everything must be respected. To respect every belief, is to neutralise the very value of truth itself. Thus abhorrent beliefs, cannot be respected, with the same tenacity, as virtuous beliefs, or logical beliefs, or rational beliefs.

By the same token.... is belief ... only ever measured in its worth.... by those who do believe? Worse yet - by those... who do _not _believe?

Far from it: those who hold no beliefs, have no such special relationship. That is, the unbelieving, are neither necessarily equipped, nor ill-equipped, to deal with the veracity of beliefs of others per se. Those who do believe, often confound, the method for arriving at a belief, with a need or desire to believe. Those who believe and do not confound themselves with their emotions, then need to believe, without the subjective problem of 'certainty'. That is - I can be certain of my beliefs, and yet, I may certainly be wrong in my certainty (i.e. I am sincerely deluded in arriving at my beliefs).

Further still - those who believe, who do not believe out of need, nor desire, nor trapped by the cable of certainty, then believe ...with a conviction in their belief. Conviction (no no - not the prison type jailbirds!) can only ever work with belief, through critique: such a belief, needs to be critically aware of the fallacies of believing, and not uncritical, of itself.

The problem .... of respect for beliefs.... is not one of belief itself. It precedes, the cognitive hard-wiring, referenced here. Fundamentally, it has something to do with the prefrontal cortex (in biological reductionist terms); what we simply call 'attitude'.

With a certain 'attitude', indeed, it is not worth discussing anything: not even worthwhile discussing classical music on a classical music forum.

Freeing oneself from this 'attitude' is a necessary step: without openness - there is no point in discussion. Everything then, is just argument, posturing, or yadayadayada.


----------



## Klavierspieler

HerlockSholmes said:


> ... an argument about biology and psychology on a classical music forum should _never_ be taken seriously to begin with...


This is not the Classical Music Forum, this is the Community Forum.


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## Polednice

Klavierspieler said:


> This is not the Classical Music Forum, this is the Community Forum.


Aye, but a lot of people seem to have it in for the Community Forum.


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## Fsharpmajor

There's no excuse for hounding people like DrMike off the community forum, in my opinion. You can't play cards against yourself.


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## Polednice

Fsharpmajor said:


> There's no excuse for hounding people like DrMike off the community forum, in my opinion. You can't play cards against yourself.


I don't think anyone "hounded" DrMike off, or even said anything a little mean. I think people on here tend to assume ambiguous statements are negative ones, which is a shame. Anyway, that particular discussion had nothing to do with the OP and was only going to go round in petulant circles...


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Head_case said:


> Sherlock,
> I'm wondering, why a *discussion* on religion and philosophy, should be taken any more seriously than a discussion on biology and psychology.
> 
> Why is there a politically correct imperative ... to respect different beliefs equally?
> 
> Beliefs can only be respected according to their merits: not some substantive or overarching principle, that everything must be respected. To respect every belief, is to neutralise the very value of truth itself. Thus abhorrent beliefs, cannot be respected, with the same tenacity, as virtuous beliefs, or logical beliefs, or rational beliefs.
> 
> By the same token.... is belief ... only ever measured in its worth.... by those who do not belief?
> 
> Far from it: those who hold no beliefs, have no such relationship. That is, the unbelieving, are neither necessarily equipped, nor ill-equipped, to deal with the veracity of beliefs of others per se.
> 
> The problem .... of respect for beliefs.... is not one of belief itself. It precedes, the cognitive hard-wiring, referenced here. Fundamentally, it has something to do with the prefrontal cortex (in biological reductionist terms); what we simply call 'attitude'.
> 
> With a certain 'attitude', indeed, it is not worth discussing anything: not even worthwhile discussing classical music on a classical music forum.
> 
> Freeing oneself from this 'attitude' is a necessary step: without openness - there is no point in discussion. Everything then, is just argument, posturing, or yadayadayada.


This is not a discussion. This is a pointless argument on an internet forum. The beginning of the thread, the part where we were still trying to talk to Ravellian about his moral struggles, _was_ a discussion. But now, it has turned into nothing but a meaningless argument.
As for the part about respecting other people's beliefs, what are you trying to get at anyway? Are you trying to say that we should disrespect them for what they believe in? Then how are you any different from the dogmatic religious insitutions that have existed throughout history?
And I'm not neuatrilizing the value of truth in anyway. This has nothing to do with truth. This is simply about treating people like human beings.


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## HerlockSholmes

Almaviva, please lock this thread.


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## Couchie

... Did I win?


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## Head_case

Getting back on track, I'm trying to remind myself what the track was:



Ravellian said:


> I am a declared atheist and I always will be


This itself, is not a position of reason, nor logic. 
If no reason, logic, nor course of reason will sway you, and you wish to ardently adhere to atheism, then I'm afraid, all I can offer, is that .... the position you have stated ... is that of a religious zealot: the modern atheist.



> since it seems obvious to me that it is simply not rational to adhere to any religion.


Differentiate between whether 'being rational', in the conceptual framework you have used, is applicable to questions that bear on humanity: "what does it mean, to be human?" "what does it mean to live each day, and feel alive and exist?"

Are these questions....that being 'rational' can answer? 
The scientist can try .... by reductionist methods, to reduce such existential questions, into the framework of science. This is inappropriate: philosophers of science, and philosophers, critique this position of science: that is - 'science cannot answer questions about your humanity'. It can tell you about your body; your molecules; your psychometrics; your anatomy; your physiology. But molecular science, anatomical science...the branches of empirical science... do not bear on the question of human existence..the existential dilemma of being human.



> However, atheism creates a problem. Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem.


This is only one of the many problems for atheism. Here, you reference the amorality of atheism: to believe that there is no x, y or z, is a futile position of oppositional defiance. All of your oppositions and defiance, sublimated into reason or logic, are futile, if religion fails, since atheism itself, is predicated on the assertion, that 'there is a God' (God/s/gods/supernatural).

The modern failure of atheism is evident in critiques which identify, that in a post-Christian society, that is, one in which the religious morality, codified into societal practice, has been dismantled and destroyed - this post-Christian society, is empty and hollow. Amoral, and unloving. Nevermind the problems of religion, when religion thrived; the problems, when religion is exterminated, are ones of utter emptiness, the moral vacuum, the existential reduction to the meaninglessness or limited heuristic of a narrow post-Darwinian worldview, with its limited scope.



> We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:
> 
> 1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.
> 
> Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*
> 
> My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?


It reminds me of an anecdote in a jokebook. A young catholic, frustrated that God does not answer his prayers every Christmas for a new bicycle, turns up to see his priest at confession. He tells the priest that he worked out, that God doesn't work 'that way', and so instead, he decided to steal a bicycle, and ask for forgiveness.

Well..the point is...that there is a transpersonal problem. Not one, necessarily of religion, or atheism. Psychologically, what you've described, is a problem with life after the death of the superego. If this is all religion is, then it does indeed, deserve to die.

The latter problem ... of rationalisation anything under the sun - this is a moral problem, when absolutes are abolished into moral relativism. Morally, the problem extends beyond atheists: it is probably worse for the religious, who can circumvent their own moral integrity, by relying on what their spiritual guide tells them to think; feel, or do, with no critical reflection from themselves.

Such a position, is morally and philosophically inauthentic: any religion which seeks to do this, does raise questions, about what is morally acceptable. To do what others do (religious or not) - is one kind of herd mentality: to do as you wish another to do to you: this is a categorical imperative (Kant).


----------



## Polednice

PLEASE!


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## HerlockSholmes

Couchie said:


> ... Did I win?


Yes, congratulations. You get four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence dedicated to you.


----------



## Couchie

HerlockSholmes said:


> Yes, congratulations. You get four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence dedicated to you.


Well, that's more silence than Princess Diana got. I'll take it.


----------



## Head_case




----------



## HerlockSholmes

Head_case said:


>


What's with the sudden change of personality?


----------



## Guest

I'm confused. I never steered this in a religious discussion. I think everybody assumed I had a religious agenda, simply based on who I am, but I never injected religion, nor tried to convince anybody of a religious aspect to these issues. In fact, I repeatedly stated I was not trying to turn it into a theological discussion. As I said, I think we all have the same interests at heart, live and let live, "golden rule," etc. Our motivations are merely what differentiates us. Knowing what I think from my perspective, I was trying to understand how the atheist side confronts some of these issues - how they understand how their way of thinking has come to them. Not for ridicule, not to try and prove some point, not to prove the superiority of my worldview. But just to understand what other people think. 

I took no offense at whatever comments were directed at me or my religion - I saw nothing disrespectful.


----------



## Fsharpmajor

Polednice said:


> I don't think anyone "hounded" DrMike off, or even said anything a little mean. I think people on here tend to assume ambiguous statements are negative ones, which is a shame. Anyway, that particular discussion had nothing to do with the OP and was only going to go round in petulant circles...


I just think that he won't be back now, but I like him, even though I profoundly disagree with him.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

DrMike said:


> I'm confused. I never steered this in a religious discussion. I think everybody assumed I had a religious agenda, simply based on who I am, but I never injected religion, nor tried to convince anybody of a religious aspect to these issues. In fact, I repeatedly stated I was not trying to turn it into a theological discussion. As I said, I think we all have the same interests at heart, live and let live, "golden rule," etc. Our motivations are merely what differentiates us. Knowing what I think from my perspective, I was trying to understand how the atheist side confronts some of these issues - how they understand how their way of thinking has come to them. Not for ridicule, not to try and prove some point, not to prove the superiority of my worldview. But just to understand what other people think.
> 
> I took no offense at whatever comments were directed at me or my religion - I saw nothing disrespectful.


That's the spirit! (although I dislike how you're starting to play the 'victim card', but whatever). This is, after all, a silly inconsequential internet argument.


----------



## Lukecash12

Couchie said:


> Even in the most primitive and brutal societies, you can see some level of the golden rule being applied, the fact that they form tribes is evidence enough. Let's not forget much of the brutality stems from religious and ritualistic practices, which is my central point. Haven't the foggiest idea? We don't need to know the exact mechanism of how empathy evolved to know it evolved. We can observe neurological evidence (ie. mirror neurones), or the fact that empathy and principles of the "golden rule" have been observed in animals: dolphins, primates, even mice. I think it is unlikely that dolphins received a set of commandments from god to behave this way. The "golden rule" principle is central to many religions, since I doubt you believe in any gods beside your own Christian God, you too must admit that the source of morality for all these religions could not have come from authentic divine command, but rather the fundamental "golden rule" morality is natural, and that was added by _people_ into _religion_, not the other way around. I go one religion further, and include yours.


Maybe you weren't explicit about what your "goal posts" were in the first place, but you certainly appear to have shifted them. I was under the assumption, given the UOD (universe of discourse) of this thread, that you were positing this supposed "Golden Rule" (according to your use of it, this "Golden Rule" is simply observed empathy) as if it were the rational and evolutionarily fit reason that people express and reciprocate empathy. Here, you have shifted your "goal posts", because you have agreed that the "Golden Rule" doesn't predominate over people to the degree that they will refrain from examples of bad reciprocity, and simply framed the issue as if all of those examples of bad reciprocity stem from religion.

This shift of "goal posts" from acceptable, evolution driven morals to relatively acceptable morals, is not exactly helpful for Ravellian, who wrote the OP. Ravellian lives in the here and now, and presumably subscribes to social ideals that are based in Enlightenment era ideals, and he needs to know whether or not he has a set of objective reasons (not Sophist type answers that have no more substance than "because your subjective experience will be better") to behave the way his sensibilities would normally direct him.

That you want to tack the issue of how we can observe through anthropology that people who pass their genomes according to conventions and means that evolution evidently supports (those means that don't support empathetic reciprocity), on to the pressures of religion, is too easy and presumptive of a cop out. Darwinian ethics (not necessarily Darwin's fault, but scientifically oriented) supported European colonialism, and the slave trade. The examples I gave of Swahili and Zulu rites, were not at all examples of religion: They were examples of manhood rites of passage, and parenting driven by a fatal realism. Not to mention that religious thought and ritualistic behavior is included in the proposed sociological models of Darwinians and other evolutionists fairly often. One argument against theism that is considered salient amongst my "skeptical" opponents, is that the development religion (especially the theistic sort) was evidently a human invention, just a page in their Darwinian models.

And lastly, that you would refer to other animals as well, as if they help your point when it comes to the "Golden Rule", reinforces my confusion as to where your goal posts are set. The behavior that we see in animals, that is much more clearly driven by evolution when it comes to a fauna biologist's perspective, actually reinforces that evolution supports behavior that is hubris to someone with post-Enlightenment ideals, with the same genome passing "hand" that reinforces empathy. Are you supporting such unimpressive and often contradicted empathy, as if observing it is a reason for us to hold our post-Enlightenment, social ideals?


----------



## Fsharpmajor

Like I've said already, I defend DrMike, even though I don't agree with him. I can think of no reason why religious people can't offer their opinion on an *atheist* thread. In fact if they didn't, what would be the point?


----------



## Polednice

Fsharpmajor said:


> Like I've said already, I defend DrMike, even though I don't agree with him. I can think of no reason why religious people can't offer their opinion on an *atheist* thread. In fact if they didn't, what would be the point?


Of course that's fine, but Ravellian asked for a response _specifically_ from an atheist perspective.


----------



## dmg

I only 'feel bad' if the action affects others in a negative way (a legitimately negative way, like causing physical pain or other troubles - not just an 'offensive' way). That is because I have empathy, and empathy is necessary for a stable society.

If it has nothing to do with anyone else, then I couldn't care less what others think. If I want to go on a wild sexcapade, then great. If I want to get tanked or stoned out of my mind, then awesome (provided I do not put myself in a position that could potentially harm others). Not anyone else's business, so no harm done.


----------



## Lukecash12

clavichorder said:


> Ravellian, I think there is hope. It is a constant struggle for me with feeling like I do not have adequate empathy for others. I also was diagnosed with aspergers as a teen though I doubt its legitimacy. Remember my thread on personality disorders? That was an indirect testing the waters with my fear of being a narcissist. I've tried to be certain that I am not a narcissist. or accept it if I have such tendencies, but no one I know seems to complain about me being selfish, so if there is anything wrong with me in that regard, it is highly covert. I do have asperger traits though, still, I _sympathetically_ feel your pain over wonder about empathy. So you aren't alone.
> 
> One article I read a while back said that many men tend to become more empathetic with age as testosterone decreases. I find that hopeful.
> 
> I struggled with a dilemna regarding violent thoughts a while ago, but I went to therapy and felt liberated to hear that these were just thoughts, that were coming up because I had a mental trap set for myself of trying not to think them and wondering if I was a bad person for thinking them in an OCDish manner.


While your compassionate and anecdotal approach is appreciated, Ravellian has made it pretty evident (at least to me, with my direct experience) by pointing out his being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, that he has a hard time rationalizing why he should be sympathetic and behave according to perceived rewards and punishments in the system of emotional reciprocity that normal people work with each other according to (and that you evidently have had some success coming to terms with, through sufficient positive reinforcement by psychological therapy), when he feels that they are often to blame for their presumptions and he doesn't see a rational reason to regard their emotions as important. What he needs, according to his diagnosis, and in order to be really motivated to have interest in the emotions of other people, is the cerebral type of reason to have that interest, that atheists claim not to have.

He can not just make do with the subjective, positive and negative reinforcement system, that normal people do just fine with, because people are more fickle according to his and my own understanding, than they may seem even to a normal person who finds other people fickle. We ("we" meaning autistic people) don't know instinctively how to correspond with this emotional rewards system, and thus we don't often know when and how we are being rewarded, why it is that we should be rewarded, etc., so there is just not enough novelty there for us to care about another person's emotions so much.

Even now, with my cerebral motivations, I have much more interest in Socratic dialogue and mathematical (Platonic and Kripkean) propositions, than I have interest in making small talk with people, gossiping, catering to someone else as regards their perspective on me. My cerebral motivation for doing them good, does not motivate me to even endeavor for them to understand my kindness, or for them to harbor any fascination or affection towards me. I don't have a hard time at all, feeling genuine affection and participating in reciprocity, with people I can operate on an intellectual level with.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Fsharpmajor said:


> Like I've said already, I defend DrMike, even though *I don't agree* with him. I can think of no reason why religious people can't offer their opinion on an atheist thread. In fact if they didn't, what would be the point?


So you don't agree with his worship of god (be it of the elderly-man-with-white-beard kind, or of the flying-meatball-with-noodly-appendage kind), but you also don't disagree with him! Which means, as my recent observations have proven, that you're a satanist! It was very clear from the beginning:

Your account name is Fsharpmajor. How many sharps are in the F sharp major key? Why, there are 6!

How many posts do you have as of now? Why, you have 600! (if you round)

Which post number is the one that I'm replying to right now? It's exactly 133. 1 + 3 + 3 = 7! Now subtract that by 1 and what do you get? Why, you get 6!

Put 'em together and you get 6 and 6 and 6.

Admit it!

Now . . . how much further can we derail this thread?


----------



## Lukecash12

Polednice said:


> But DrMike is pretty much pushing for a chemical explanation of absolutely everything that a human might ever say, think, or do. If we had even a pretty solid idea on the basis of mirror neurons wired to the prefrontal cortex, there would still be certain incomplete areas, and DrMike would be probing those instead.


Then Platonic forms don't really exist, and mathematical logic has only a superfluous correspondence with reality? Something that even passionate math geeks don't seem to understand, is that when they subscribe to mathematical observation, operation, and equation- according to the universe of discourse that is called mathematical notation- operates according to the Platonic assumption that the Forms are either express everything, or they express nothing.

So, science at it's very practical basis, operates according to the idea that everything must have an explanation, whether or not it is attainable, because we can use a mathematical and propositional universe of discourse to discern between our observations, and so far as we can tell our observations have always been consistent with each other and compatible with our universe of discourse, as long as we have not abused the universe of discourse. Simplified: As long as we don't abuse basic Boolean logic, and ultimately build our scientific propositions upon it (without abusing our notation), we can observe anything about any posible state of affairs, given the physical capability.


----------



## Kopachris

Since we have not seen Ravellian post in this thread for several pages, I can only assume that he has taken my advice and is currently reading the works of Nietzsche. Therefore, I think the thread has run its course.



HerlockSholmes said:


> Now . . . how much further can we derail this thread?


Do you really want to know? Really? Are you sure? Because if you want, we could always....

Well, I've seen some epic derailments on imageboards, and have a few tricks up my sleeve, should you require further derailment.


----------



## Lukecash12

Philip said:


> man... honestly, DrMike, you should restrict yourself to asking only one question per post. quite frankly, i think you're asking the wrong questions (and no, they are not scientific), and you're looking for answers at the wrong place. some of your ideas are just as relevant as:
> 
> why do i like bacon? was i born with the desire for bacon? what is the scientific explanation for my love of bacon? if no explanation is thorough enough to motivate my love for bacon, does God have anything to do with bacon? ...it doesn't make sense brother!!!
> 
> *bacon is just delicious*!


Your reference to Dr. Mike bringing up God as an explanation for his liking bacon, while analogous, happens to be a straw man. You simply don't have enough substance from him in this thread, to suppose that simply because he believes in God as the ultimate answer to some questions, that he qualifies everything he doesn't understand as inexplicable aside from his belief in God.


----------



## Lukecash12

HerlockSholmes said:


> While I do agree that all different beliefs should be equally respected, an argument about biology and psychology on a classical music forum should _never_ be taken seriously to begin with. This whole thing is ridiculous.
> And by the way, this thread has already been derailed enough already. It might as well be locked by a moderator or something.


1. This is the community forum. Discussion here is not limited to classical music, and is limited only by the spirit of the forum: no ad hominem, nothing mean spirited, nothing that is pressing something on the members here that doesn't entertain them.

2. Why might it be that interesting and socially relevant debates that spark up here, often steer away from the spirit of the boards? The answer is simple: people are incapable of taking one another seriously. They simply don't seem able to reciprocate the respect they receive, and throw in their mean spirited posts (or posts that are well meaning, but not compatible with the spirit of these forums), and characterize such subjects as incompatible here, even though there are members here who are capable of debating about mature subjects without resorting to ad hominem, impiety, disrespect, and mean spirited argumentation. There seem to be plenty of adults here who are comfortable with Socratic dialogue, who continue participating in such threads and continue composing thoughtful response, demonstrating that they wish to spend their time composing posts about _these subjects on these forums_, because they are entertained by it and they find the spirit of the forums here agreeable and conducive of mature dialogue.


----------



## Guest

In my experience, there is not a conversational topic that can hold absolute attention indefinitely. That the conversation starts to stray to tangents is more reflective of that specific question either having been discussed to the limit people wanted to discuss it, or people became bored with it, and moved on to distinct, but related topics. Everybody worries about "derailments," but what does it matter so long as the conversation is still civil, and the current discussion is still somewhat related? I notice those that complain of the derailment are not adding more to the original discussion. Why not? Is there still something to be said that has not been said? Is there some opinion that has not been shared? And given that you can post pretty much whatever you want, why not go ahead and say it if you have something to say still germane to the original question?

My questions may be tangential, but I still think they are within the realm of the discussion. It is the same fundamental question. Whence comes the motivation to act the way we do? I am interested in the atheist perspective. Polednice - I'm not trying to reduce it all to chemical reactions. I mentioned that might be one possibility - giving the example of my altered behavior when my blood sugars were off as a possible example for how this could be one plausible explanation. But if there are non-chemistry based explanations, I'm happy to learn them as well. I'm not trying to limit the possibilities. I'm not asking the metaphysical. We are here, and we act the way we do. So starting from the assumption that there is no god, and how we came to be what we now are can be explained scientifically, if not today, then possibly some day - I'm simply wondering what those ideas are. Scientists in numerous fields generate hypotheses regarding things that are impossible to measure with our current level of technology. Nobody ever bothers to create the technology to answer tomorrow's questions without beginning to wonder today about those questions.


----------



## Philip

Lukecash12 said:


> Your reference to Dr. Mike bringing up God as an explanation for his liking bacon, while analogous, happens to be a straw man. You simply don't have enough substance from him in this thread, to suppose that simply because he believes in God as the ultimate answer to some questions, that he qualifies everything he doesn't understand as inexplicable aside from his belief in God.


----------



## Lukecash12

HerlockSholmes said:


> This is not a discussion. This is a pointless argument on an internet forum. The beginning of the thread, the part where we were still trying to talk to Ravellian about his moral struggles, _was_ a discussion. But now, it has turned into nothing but a meaningless argument.
> As for the part about respecting other people's beliefs, what are you trying to get at anyway? Are you trying to say that we should disrespect them for what they believe in? Then how are you any different from the dogmatic religious insitutions that have existed throughout history?
> And I'm not neuatrilizing the value of truth in anyway. This has nothing to do with truth. This is simply about treating people like human beings.


I personally, am very interested in this thread not being locked, and am interested in discussing with Ravellian what his problems are. I have extensive expertise with people who have autism, and I happen to have it, so I can see his problems fairly clearly and would need only a short correspondence to grasp his own idiosyncratic language and how it relates to mine, in order to discuss this subject with him on a level intellectual field. In contrast to how people have characterized this thread, I've endeavored to be productive and give Ravellian exactly what I know, given my unique expertise, that he probably needs.

It has developed to the point, that if this thread is locked anyways, I will probably just PM him. People who are merely diagnosed with autism, and don't come to understand the particulars of their own condition, even though they have been given therapy in order to deal with their symptoms, they lack a lot of the motivation that other people have to behave the way they do, and the motivation to be what other people consider "successful".


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Lukecash12 said:


> 1. This is the community forum. Discussion here is not limited to classical music, and is limited only by the spirit of the forum: no ad hominem, nothing mean spirited, nothing that is pressing something on the members here that doesn't entertain them.
> 
> 2. Why might it be that interesting and socially relevant debates that spark up here, often steer away from the spirit of the boards? The answer is simple: people are incapable of taking one another seriously. They simply don't seem able to reciprocate the respect they receive, and throw in their mean spirited posts (or posts that are well meaning, but not compatible with the spirit of these forums), and characterize such subjects as incompatible here, even though there are members here who are capable of debating about mature subjects without resorting to ad hominem, impiety, disrespect, and mean spirited argumentation. There seem to be plenty of adults here who are comfortable with Socratic dialogue, who continue participating in such threads and continue composing thoughtful response, demonstrating that they wish to spend their time composing posts about _these subjects on these forums_, because they are entertained by it and they find the spirit of the forums here agreeable and conducive of mature dialogue.


For number two, I actually think people are taking things way too seriously here. Notice Dr.Mike's post right below you.


----------



## Lukecash12

HerlockSholmes said:


> For number two, I actually think people are taking things way too seriously here. Notice Dr.Mike's post right below you.


Precisely, the thread is moving in a direction that doesn't entertain you. You do not have to derail the thread, then. So long as we are entertained and civil, only Dr. Mike and I need to post here back and forth, participating in Socratic rumination, in order for this thread to progress.


----------



## graaf

Philip said:


>


for some reason, that reminded me of this argument.


----------



## clavichorder

Lukecash12 said:


> People who are merely diagnosed with autism, and don't come to understand the particulars of their own condition, even though they have been given therapy in order to deal with their symptoms, they lack a lot of the motivation that other people have to behave the way they do, and the motivation to be what other people consider "successful".


Must one understand the particulars of their condition within the scope of aspergers if they have symptoms, in order to live up to their potential? I have certain difficulties in my life that I have not been able to ascribe to any psychological condition that satisfied me, other than that I may have some mild species of aspergers.

Anyway, I also have a personal interest in the original content of this thread. But as Polednice said, theory of mind and humanitarian/empathetic behavior are not the same thing. Still I'd bet a lot of people with Aspergers symptoms struggle with issues concerning morality especially as young adults, not necessarily in terms of following conventions, but more often then not, I think an extreme fear of breaking conventions that causes harmful self hating anxiety and can turn inward and cause us to think we are "bad" people. (all of the sudden I have formed some sort of "we" out of this, really I'm talking about myself here...). I don't know if I have aspergers, it was just suggested in my more troubled teen years.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Lukecash12 said:


> Precisely, the thread is moving in a direction that doesn't entertain you. You do not have to derail the thread, then. So long as we are entertained and civil, only Dr. Mike and I need to post here back and forth, participating in Socratic rumination, in order for this thread to progress.


The funny part is that whether this thread progresses or not is entirely inconsequential. And it has already been completely derailed by the way.

Socratic rumination on an internet forum . . . what is it that I find so funny about that statement?


----------



## Almaviva

HerlockSholmes said:


> The funny part is that whether this thread progresses or not is entirely inconsequential. And it has already been completely derailed by the way.
> 
> Socratic rumination on an internet forum . . . what is it that I find so funny about that statement?


Somehow I think you're the person doing the bulk of the derailment now, HerlockSholmes.
There was a point up there when the thread could/should have been locked. But we aren't ubiquitous. I'm not here 24/7.
Then the thread actually kind of self-corrected and people tried to go back to Ravellian's questions.
And yes, *most* of the discussion was civil and when it wasn't, the amount of disrespect wasn't enormous, and the main recipients of the mild abuse weren't troubled.
I don't really see the point in locking this thread right now (you know, moderation is an unrewarding task - when you don't do something some people are upset at you for being too lenient; when you do, some other people get upset at you for being too heavy-handed).
If the thread and its direction bother you a lot, just don't participate.


----------



## Fsharpmajor

HerlockSholmes said:


> So you don't agree with his worship of god (be it of the elderly-man-with-white-beard kind, or of the flying-meatball-with-noodly-appendage kind), but you also don't disagree with him! Which means, as my recent observations have proven, that you're a satanist! It was very clear from the beginning:
> 
> Your account name is Fsharpmajor. How many sharps are in the F sharp major key? Why, there are 6!
> 
> How many posts do you have as of now? Why, you have 600! (if you round)
> 
> Which post number is the one that I'm replying to right now? It's exactly 133. 1 + 3 + 3 = 7! Now subtract that by 1 and what do you get? Why, you get 6!
> 
> Put 'em together and you get 6 and 6 and 6.
> 
> Admit it!
> 
> Now . . . how much further can we derail this thread?


*ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE MERELY COINCIDENCES*

So let's get it back on track. I think the opinions of religious people are relevant in an atheist thread. In fact, I don't see how it could be otherwise. Being the Antichrist gives me a perspective on these things.


----------



## Lukecash12

clavichorder said:


> Must one understand the particulars of their condition within the scope of aspergers if they have symptoms, in order to live up to their potential? I have certain difficulties in my life that I have not been able to ascribe to any psychological condition that satisfied me, other than that I may have some mild species of aspergers.
> 
> Anyway, I also have a personal interest in the original content of this thread. But as Polednice said, theory of mind and humanitarian/empathetic behavior are not the same thing. Still I'd bet a lot of people with Aspergers symptoms struggle with issues concerning morality especially as young adults, not necessarily in terms of following conventions, but more often then not, I think an extreme fear of breaking conventions that causes harmful self hating anxiety and can turn inward and cause us to think we are "bad" people. (all of the sudden I have formed some sort of "we" out of this, really I'm talking about myself here...). I don't know if I have aspergers, it was just suggested in my more troubled teen years.


You seem a little misinformed about what the symptoms of aspergers happen to be, and how to define the intellect that is plagued by these symptoms. Still, it's possible that you have aspergers, given the language you use, and given your rationale. Shoot me a PM, if you'd like to discuss your own potential case of aspergers, because I am interested in discussing that with you, and have relevant expertise in psychology (especially child psychology, meaning that your adolescent stages can be taken into account).

Relevant to this thread, the motivation that you've described for one such as yourself agreeing with other people on their values, doesn't fall in line very well with how the normal people you wish to engender are motivated to act the way they do (which is extremely multifaceted, and not relevant to Ravellian or maybe you). This motivation that you described is actually characteristic of someone with a minor form of autism, in contrast to my starkly clinical thought process that reflects my high functioning autism. Your supposed motivation is, no offense intended, mellodramatic and displays that you have "tunnel vision". Also, the juxtaposition of the phrases in the first paragraph of this post of yours, happens to be a vivid depiction of someone who is on your projected scale of autism, because of the way it addresses it's own question and doesn't line up sequentially or grammatically in a way that clearly relates the two sentences, so that a normal person can easily follow your train of thought.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Fsharpmajor said:


> So let's get it back on track. I think the opinions of religious people are relevant in an atheist thread. In fact, I don't see how it could be otherwise. *Being the Antichrist gives me a perspective on these things*


Now that you admit it, please tell us how we could serve you, almighty one. So that we may do your bidding, as shall everyone else henceforward.


----------



## Philip

HerlockSholmes said:


> Fsharpmajor said:
> 
> 
> 
> So let's get it back on track. I think the opinions of religious people are relevant in an atheist thread. In fact, I don't see how it could be otherwise. *Being the Antichrist gives me a perspective on these things.*
> 
> 
> 
> Now that you admit it, please tell us how we could serve you, almighty one. So that we may do your bidding, as shall everyone else henceforward.
Click to expand...

at first i thought HerlockSholmes added the bold part into Fsharpmajor's quote -- that would've been very funny..


----------



## Lukecash12

Philip said:


> at first i thought HerlockSholmes added the bold part into Fsharpmajor's quote -- that would've been very funny..


??? He _did_ embolden that part himself.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Philip said:


> at first i thought HerlockSholmes added the bold part into Fsharpmajor's quote -- that would've been very funny..


Wow. A quote within a quote! How did you do that?


----------



## Philip

Lukecash12 said:


> ??? He _did_ embolden that part himself.


added, not embolden


----------



## Philip

Lukecash12 said:


> ??? He _did_ embolden that part himself. *PS. I ACTUALLY DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD*


like that ...


----------



## Lukecash12

Philip said:


> added, not embolden


Then that would have been classic. You'd have some hard competition for the comedic relief position.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Why am I being ignored?


----------



## Kopachris

HerlockSholmes said:


> Why am I being ignored?


More importantly, how _did_ Philip get a quote within a quote???

Let's see... 


Lukecash12 said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> 
> added, not embolden
> 
> 
> 
> Then that would have been classic. You'd have some hard competition for the comedic relief position.
Click to expand...

When did they decide to let us do that?


----------



## Philip

HerlockSholmes said:


> Wow. A quote within a quote! How did you do that?


Bach would've known


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Kopachris said:


> More importantly, how _did_ Philip get a quote within a quote???
> 
> Let's see...
> 
> When did they decide to let us do that?


Can you see whether or not a quote within a quote within a quote could be made?


----------



## Philip

J.S.Bach said:


> HerlockSholmes said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kopachris said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HerlockSholmes said:
> 
> 
> 
> Why am I being ignored?
> 
> 
> 
> More importantly, how _did_ Philip get a quote within a quote???
> 
> Let's see...
> 
> 
> Lukecash12 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philip said:
> 
> 
> 
> added, not embolden
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Then that would have been classic. You'd have some hard competition for the comedic relief position.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> When did they decide to let us do that?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Can you see whether or not a quote within a quote within a quote could be made?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I would've known...
Click to expand...

i'm not sure what you mean...


----------



## HerlockSholmes

Philip said:


> i'm not sure what you mean...


Nice. I like this thread. Should we now turn it into an argument about the ambiguous ending of the movie that I'm thinking about and that you and everyone else are probably thinking about as well?


----------



## Guest

myaskovsky2002 said:


> LOL...Yes why?
> 
> Martin


Sólo pensé que podría haber sido España lol


----------



## Ravellian

I'm sorry for not posting for a while; I am extremely busy at the moment (and my recital is very soon). My main goal for this topic was not to convince anybody that my position is correct, but rather to state my current perspective and to gain insights from others. I was hoping to get mostly responses from fellow atheists, but I will certainly allow theistic members to participate as long as they don't try to insert any religious dogma (Lukecash and DrMike seem to be fine in this regard). I wanted the discussion to focus on atheist morality, not any "religion vs atheism" argument.

Some members have already posted some helpful resources that will further my understanding on this topic: Nietzsche, Sam Harris, and perhaps most importantly, evolutionary biology. 

Regarding Dr. Mike's initial post, he seems to be arguing for some kind of behavioral dichotomy between humans and non-humans, that there is something about our behaviors and intentions that innately sets us apart from all other animals. I do not see why we can't simply view human behavior as the "next step" in the evolutionary line; for one, I know that humans are not the only self-aware beings: dolphins, apes, and elephants have been shown to have this trait.


----------



## Ravellian

Lukecash12 said:


> While your compassionate and anecdotal approach is appreciated, Ravellian has made it pretty evident (at least to me, with my direct experience) by pointing out his being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, that he has a hard time rationalizing why he should be sympathetic and behave according to perceived rewards and punishments in the system of emotional reciprocity that normal people work with each other according to (and that you evidently have had some success coming to terms with, through sufficient positive reinforcement by psychological therapy), when he feels that they are often to blame for their presumptions and he doesn't see a rational reason to regard their emotions as important. What he needs, according to his diagnosis, and in order to be really motivated to have interest in the emotions of other people, is the cerebral type of reason to have that interest, that atheists claim not to have.
> 
> He can not just make do with the subjective, positive and negative reinforcement system, that normal people do just fine with, because people are more fickle according to his and my own understanding, than they may seem even to a normal person who finds other people fickle. We ("we" meaning autistic people) don't know instinctively how to correspond with this emotional rewards system, and thus we don't often know when and how we are being rewarded, why it is that we should be rewarded, etc., so there is just not enough novelty there for us to care about another person's emotions so much.


Yes, that's basically what I'm looking for, a cerebral reason to justify morality. I didn't want to make too much issue over my syndrome, obviously since a working system of morality for a person with autism will look at least somewhat different from a system of morality for a person without. I do believe, however, that to solely rely on a morality system that is justified through subjective emotions is faulty, for anybody. We all need rationality to a certain extent.

Perhaps the greatest cerebral justification can be found in the evolutionary biology studies posted, those do seem promising at least. If it can be scientifically shown that it is in my best interest to act in ways that benefit others, that will be a great aid in my coming to grips with my morality.


----------



## clavichorder

Lukecash12 said:


> Also, the juxtaposition of the phrases in the first paragraph of this post of yours, happens to be a vivid depiction of someone who is on your projected scale of autism, because of the way it addresses it's own question and doesn't line up sequentially or grammatically in a way that clearly relates the two sentences, so that a normal person can easily follow your train of thought.


I appreciate the analysis. If this somehow signifies an autistic type thought pattern, that is an interesting observation. But it may just be my own lack of discipline and unwillingness to edit obsessively. Then again, I find it very difficult to write sequentially, I have to jump around a lot, and my experience has taught me that generally this is okay although it often doesn't do my thoughts justice. This is why I often don't participate in longer discussions here, though some of it, I'll admit is my attention span.


----------



## clavichorder

Lukecash12 said:


> Relevant to this thread, the motivation that you've described for one such as yourself agreeing with other people on their values, doesn't fall in line very well with how the normal people you wish to engender are motivated to act the way they do (which is extremely multifaceted, and not relevant to Ravellian or maybe you). This motivation that you described is actually characteristic of someone with a minor form of autism, in contrast to my starkly clinical thought process that reflects my high functioning autism. Your supposed motivation is, no offense intended, mellodramatic and displays that you have "tunnel vision".


Moving out of the abstract, can we work on defining what this motivation is? If you'd rather do this in PM, I'd be willing, but I can't be totally clear on motivation being used to sum up select contents that may have been garnered from my previous writings. I don't know what stood out to you as my motivations, basically.

To insert a generalization, I think we all have our tunnel vision(s?). But which tunnel vision do you refer to? No offense is taken, I've been told this before anyway. Perhaps I'm just not very well educated...I confess that I'm lazy, and I hate myself sometimes for my lack of discipline, but I can only do what's natural for me and what I have to do to get by if natural isn't enough. I suppose ambition is a factor, and I do have that, but often ambition turns into failure and dissapointment anyway... Anyway that was a tangent, what were we talking about?


----------



## mmsbls

Wow, I posted to this thread this morning and late this evening there were 6 or 7 pages of additional posts!

@Ravellian: You asked for some references to reciprocal altruism studies. Almost all of my knowledge comes from several books. The one that started my interest was _The Evolution of Cooperation_ by Robert Axelrod. There is a paper written with W. D. Hamilton that lead to the book. Hamilton is considered a brilliant theorist who developed the theory of the genetic basis for altruism.

The theory of reciprocal altruism was first proposed by Robert Trivers in this paper.

I have read more updated books and some papers, but I cannot remember the details. I searched for "reciprocal altruism" and got many hits for more recent papers. Most of these are technical (so are the ones I listed of course).

The basic theory seems to be on good scientific footing, but getting empirical support is much more difficult. Not all biologists are convinced that altruism has been selected for (i.e. natural selection has modified human brains to create altruistic people). There seems to be a growing field of evolutionary psychology that many support, but others remain skeptical. We clearly need more data to match the theories.


----------



## Lukecash12

mmsbls said:


> Wow, I posted to this thread this morning and late this evening there were 6 or 7 pages of additional posts!
> 
> @Ravellian: You asked for some references to reciprocal altruism studies. Almost all of my knowledge comes from several books. The one that started my interest was _The Evolution of Cooperation_ by Robert Axelrod. There is a paper written with W. D. Hamilton that lead to the book. Hamilton is considered a brilliant theorist who developed the theory of the genetic basis for altruism.
> 
> The theory of reciprocal altruism was first proposed by Robert Trivers in this paper.
> 
> I have read more updated books and some papers, but I cannot remember the details. I searched for "reciprocal altruism" and got many hits for more recent papers. Most of these are technical (so are the ones I listed of course).
> 
> The basic theory seems to be on good scientific footing, but getting empirical support is much more difficult. Not all biologists are convinced that altruism has been selected for (i.e. natural selection has modified human brains to create altruistic people). There seems to be a growing field of evolutionary psychology that many support, but others remain skeptical. We clearly need more data to match the theories.


Isn't it true that anthropology, which observes humans that can be said to exhibit behavior that more clearly represents evolutionary factors, points out to us on numerous occasions that people are not at all altruistic and there is a direct relationship between their aggressive and passive aggressive behavior, to passing on their genes?


----------



## mmsbls

@DrMike: I understand your question, also understand that it does not involve God or religion, and think it is definitely relevant to the OP. 

I have thought about how to respond, and unfortunately, even a simplistic response would be far too long for this forum. Of course no one understands remotely enough about brain mechanisms and evolution to properly describe the physical basis of altruism. Nevertheless, I will try to give a sense of what I believe and why.

The issue is not whether evolution can modify physical aspects of the brain or even some behaviors. Social insects have detailed behaviors that biologists believe were sculpted by evolution, and presumably humans have certain behaviors as well. The question is how can modifying the brain through natural selection give rise to a desire to do good. 

Two conditions must be met: first, there must be a physical mechanism that can detect situations that can benefit from altruistic behavior; and second, there must be a physical mechanism that creates a “desire” for us act on those situations.

Several people have mentioned the mirror network of neurons. Mirror neurons apparently allow us to see another person in pain or discomfort and feel similar suffering. When someone stubs their toe, we don’t feel pain, but we “know their pain.” We may have similar physical mechanisms to “know” others mental suffering (i.e. grief, embarrassment, desperation, etc.). The mirror neurons can then trigger our desire to act altruistically. Obviously we have desires for sex, eating, and other actions, and various physical triggers stimulate them. Perhaps mirror neurons stimulate a “hunger” to alleviate our feelings of others suffering. As we develop, we learn behaviors that tend to alleviate our own and others’ suffering. Eventually the mirror neurons directly trigger these behaviors. Evolution can then act on the mirror neurons and the trigger mechanisms. A general purpose brain is needed to learn and remember effective behaviors to alleviate suffering.

Another important part to my overall view is that I am a materialist. Everything including all brain functions and thinking (what some call mind) is physical. Thus, evolution can act on everything that contributes to our general thinking and decision processes. I do not necessarily believe that all brain functions or mechanisms are adaptive (i.e. created through natural selection). 

This description is almost hopelessly simplistic, but hopefully it gives you a sense of how one atheist (some would say agnostic) attempts to understand altruistic behavior.


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## mmsbls

Lukecash12 said:


> Isn't it true that anthropology, which observes humans that can be said to exhibit behavior that more clearly represents evolutionary factors, points out to us on numerous occasions that people are not at all altruistic and there is a direct relationship between their aggressive and passive aggressive behavior, to passing on their genes?


I would say that biologists believe that evolution creates the ability to behave both selfishly and altruistically. The details of the situation determine which behavior will be manifest. Much of the time humans choose behaviors that benefit their genes, but certain situations (e.g. their children are at risk) will more likely produce altruistic behavior.


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## Lukecash12

mmsbls said:


> I would say that biologists believe that evolution creates the ability to behave both selfishly and altruistically. The details of the situation determine which behavior will be manifest. Much of the time humans choose behaviors that benefit their genes, but certain situations (e.g. their children are at risk) will more likely produce altruistic behavior.


Then there is no evolutionarily productive basis for being _generally_ altruistic?


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## Sid James

This thread passed me by due to time & more focus on musical matters, I don't have time to read all the posts which look very interesting, I'll just go off your opening post, Ravellian if that's ok.



Ravellian said:


> ...Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem. We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:
> 
> 1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.


I can understand this. I'm borderline athiest. It depends on my mood :lol: Sounds strange but let me explain. I'm Aussie but with European background. We have a very relaxed attitude to religion here. It's more what the USA people would call liberal. On the European side, some of my family members saw what was going on in Europe during World War Two. They weren't Jewish but saw what was done to the Jews. They experienced the hunger, bombings, death, starvation and all those horrible things. So no wonder that they're all basically all athiests. They felt that a God didn't or couldn't exist if these horrible things could happen.

So I'm in between. I still feel religion is good to a degree, for eg. societal cohesion, unity. All people who worship have some sort of faith and morality, which God/s they worship isn't that important.



> ...Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*


I think there are humanist norms and values. Like of Erasmus and Goethe, & other philosophers. It's about the values of society as a whole. On the other side we have individualists like Ayn Rand who I basically think is rubbish. They say that there is no society just an economy (Maggie Thatcher former British PM apparently said this, I bet she was influenced by Ms Rand).

So I think there are HUMAN values and I am more a Humanist than religious or plain athiest. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, even the late Aussie/NZ born opthamologist Fred Hollows, they are people I think we can admire and look up to. Not exactly saints but near enough. Their vision was of human unity not oppression and division.



> My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?


Yes it is, there is no clear answer. If you're interested in philosophy maybe read Bertrand Russell's classic account of it. I started to read it last year but got side-tracked. It's not exactly in plain English but it isn't too bad either. He goes through from ancient philosophy to c20th, and also deals with things like ethics and the growth of human knowledge, the arts and sciences. Mr Russell was a staunch athiest, btw, so he's on your side of the spectrum (but he died a while back). He even wrote a short book giving clear reasons on why he was an athiest, details on googlebooks HERE...


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## Polednice

How is the Golden Rule _not_ a valid cerebral justification? Expect to be lynched if you go round doing what you like because you think others' feelings are unimportant. Hell, even if they _are_ unimportant on a universal scale, you're still gonna get lynched!


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## Lukecash12

graaf said:


> Greeks also said: know thyself. I'm just adding that when we do that, not everything is rosy.
> 
> best regards,
> graaf


Coming back to this, I'd like to point out that it is evident that Graaf was unknowingly quoting the character Critias from Plato's Charmides dialogue. Critias, who wasn't cast as a favorable character at all, said that one must know himself in order to be virtuous and express piety, thus he felt that self knowledge was the definition of virtue; After that, Socrates hammered into him and pointed out that his definition was subjective, and it committed the basic fallacy of improper concept categorization. A person and that person's knowledge of him/her is not the same in the proper sense, as the concept of virtue. So, our friend Graaf decided to give us a quotation that is looked at with derision by classical Greek philosophers as a subjective, Sophist argument given by one of the Thirty tyrants (an oligarchy that oppressed Athens) before he came into power (at least Critias made the argument according to Plato's purposes in the literary work).

_MM McCabe, "Looking inside Charmides' Cloak," in Maieusis, essays for Myles Burnyeat, ed. D.Scott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

T. Robinson (ed.) Plato: Euthydemus, Lysis, Charmides: Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium Platonicum (Sankt Augustin: Academia, 2000)._

It was a familiar quote, and I had fun reading about it, so I don't want to seem mean spirited or arrogant. Graaf intrigued me, and I went down the rabbit trail he apparently didn't go down. So good on him for his memory, and good on us all for being a little more acquainted with Plato :lol:


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> @DrMike: I understand your question, also understand that it does not involve God or religion, and think it is definitely relevant to the OP.
> 
> I have thought about how to respond, and unfortunately, even a simplistic response would be far too long for this forum. Of course no one understands remotely enough about brain mechanisms and evolution to properly describe the physical basis of altruism. Nevertheless, I will try to give a sense of what I believe and why.
> 
> The issue is not whether evolution can modify physical aspects of the brain or even some behaviors. Social insects have detailed behaviors that biologists believe were sculpted by evolution, and presumably humans have certain behaviors as well. The question is how can modifying the brain through natural selection give rise to a desire to do good.
> 
> Two conditions must be met: first, there must be a physical mechanism that can detect situations that can benefit from altruistic behavior; and second, there must be a physical mechanism that creates a "desire" for us act on those situations.
> 
> Several people have mentioned the mirror network of neurons. Mirror neurons apparently allow us to see another person in pain or discomfort and feel similar suffering. When someone stubs their toe, we don't feel pain, but we "know their pain." We may have similar physical mechanisms to "know" others mental suffering (i.e. grief, embarrassment, desperation, etc.). The mirror neurons can then trigger our desire to act altruistically. Obviously we have desires for sex, eating, and other actions, and various physical triggers stimulate them. Perhaps mirror neurons stimulate a "hunger" to alleviate our feelings of others suffering. As we develop, we learn behaviors that tend to alleviate our own and others' suffering. Eventually the mirror neurons directly trigger these behaviors. Evolution can then act on the mirror neurons and the trigger mechanisms. A general purpose brain is needed to learn and remember effective behaviors to alleviate suffering.
> 
> Another important part to my overall view is that I am a materialist. Everything including all brain functions and thinking (what some call mind) is physical. Thus, evolution can act on everything that contributes to our general thinking and decision processes. I do not necessarily believe that all brain functions or mechanisms are adaptive (i.e. created through natural selection).
> 
> This description is almost hopelessly simplistic, but hopefully it gives you a sense of how one atheist (some would say agnostic) attempts to understand altruistic behavior.


Thank you. This is the kind of response I was looking for.

I have practically no experience with neuroscience, so I found this information interesting. You mention the growing field of evolutionary psychology. Is this a recognized field? Journals, meetings, faculty in academia, etc.? Or is it a growing idea in existing fields? Again, just curious.

In the field of evolutionary psychology, is there any growing consensus of the relative impacts of nature vs. nurture? Whether our actions are more pre-determined by how we are genetically hard-wired, or whether that is only the very basic part of our conscience (for lack of a better term at this point), and that how we are raised and taught has the larger impact. Again, going back to the identical twins - were they to be raised identically as well, all things kept equal, is it a given they will react the same in any given situation? Or raise them in completely opposite ways - one treated affectionately, one treated abusively - could they then still behave the same?


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## Ravellian

Since the Golden Rule keeps getting brought up, I should mention that by itself it is not a sufficient system of morality, since it only considers actions you do that affect other people. It is silent about actions that affect only yourself. For example: choosing to exercise, eat the right foods, study homework, etc... the Golden Rule doesn't take any of that into account.


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## Polednice

Ravellian said:


> Since the Golden Rule keeps getting brought up, I should mention that by itself it is not a sufficient system of morality, since it only considers actions you do that affect other people. It is silent about actions that affect only yourself. For example: choosing to exercise, eat the right foods, study homework, etc... the Golden Rule doesn't take any of that into account.


But what does personal well-being have to do with morality? I still see no failing with the Golden Rule!


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## Guest

Ravellian said:


> Since the Golden Rule keeps getting brought up, I should mention that by itself it is not a sufficient system of morality, since it only considers actions you do that affect other people. It is silent about actions that affect only yourself. For example: choosing to exercise, eat the right foods, study homework, etc... the Golden Rule doesn't take any of that into account.


I would think those would fall under basic survival instincts - making the right choices in those situations increase your ability to lead a happier and better life, and I would think at the root it is the same motivation as lies at the foundation of altruistic actions - positive feelings resulting from actions, whether they be to help others or help yourself.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> But what does personal well-being have to do with morality? I still see no failing with the Golden Rule!


Would not the most basic concept of morality be to not waste life? Whether you are religious or not, life is an incredible thing - either part of a grander picture, or a completely unique experience for each person - no two people being exactly alike. And in that sense, whether you are talking about helping others or helping yourself, the basic concept of morality is unchanging. If wasting life is immoral, then certainly that applies for your own life as well as the lives of others.


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> Would not the most basic concept of morality be to not waste life? Whether you are religious or not, life is an incredible thing - either part of a grander picture, or a completely unique experience for each person - no two people being exactly alike. And in that sense, whether you are talking about helping others or helping yourself, the basic concept of morality is unchanging. If wasting life is immoral, then certainly that applies for your own life as well as the lives of others.


Aye, but what does the concept of wasting one's life have to do with doing homework and keeping in shape? :/


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> Aye, but what does the concept of wasting one's life have to do with doing homework and keeping in shape? :/


If you do your homework, you get a better education, you get a better job, you earn a higher salary, you have a higher standard of living, you live longer, etc.

If you keep in shape, you are less prone to illness, and you live longer.

Doing the opposite seems to be self-explanatory in how it can negatively impact on your life.


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## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> You mention the growing field of evolutionary psychology. Is this a recognized field? Journals, meetings, faculty in academia, etc.? Or is it a growing idea in existing fields?


There are two journals that I'm aware of: _Evolutionary Psychology_, which is peer reviewed, and _Evolution and Human Behavior_ (I'm not sure if this is peer reviewed, but there is an extensive board of editors). I know there are annual meetings in the field. I don't know much about how universities view this field, but the University of New Mexico has a Human Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences interdisciplinary group. I suspect other universities have similar groups.



DrMike said:


> In the field of evolutionary psychology, is there any growing consensus of the relative impacts of nature vs. nurture? Whether our actions are more pre-determined by how we are genetically hard-wired, or whether that is only the very basic part of our conscience (for lack of a better term at this point), and that how we are raised and taught has the larger impact. Again, going back to the identical twins - were they to be raised identically as well, all things kept equal, is it a given they will react the same in any given situation? Or raise them in completely opposite ways - one treated affectionately, one treated abusively - could they then still behave the same?


I don't know enough to answer this question. I find it hard to believe that twins raised significantly differently would behave exactly the same, but I suspect they would still retain more psychological similarities than the average pair of humans. I think this issue is still much to complicated.


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## mmsbls

Lukecash12 said:


> Then there is no evolutionarily productive basis for being _generally_ altruistic?


If you mean does evolution push toward always behaving altruistically, the answer is clearly no.


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## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> Aye, but what does the concept of wasting one's life have to do with doing homework and keeping in shape? :/


One of the Council for Secular Humanism's tenets of the Affirmations of Humanism is "We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest." Obviously, developing our talents to the fullest requires hard work over long periods.

Another tenet is not related to this question but is related to the thread. That tenet is "We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences." I especially like the last two sentence as I believe morality is something that humans can only understand by testing empirically.


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> If you do your homework, you get a better education, you get a better job, you earn a higher salary, you have a higher standard of living, you live longer, etc.
> 
> If you keep in shape, you are less prone to illness, and you live longer.
> 
> Doing the opposite seems to be self-explanatory in how it can negatively impact on your life.


Even so, this can't be included in a more general sense of morality and well-being; not everyone will (or should) value an education and high salary. If someone values cake more than health, that's their prerogative _so long as they're doing what makes them happy._


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> Even so, this can't be included in a more general sense of morality and well-being; not everyone will (or should) value an education and high salary. If someone values cake more than health, that's their prerogative _so long as they're doing what makes them happy._


From an evolutionary standpoint, though, what the individual wants and what makes the individual happy is completely irrelevant. Evolution is not an individual phenomenon, rather it works on populations. Darwin's masterpiece was concerned with species, not individuals. So ultimately, if behavior is something that can be transmitted, as dna is transmitted, what makes you happy is irrelevant unless it is beneficial to the entire species. Or, on the unhappy chance that what makes you happy has negative consequences for others (e.g. serial killers, dictators, etc.), presumably your behavior would be selected against.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I don't know enough to answer this question. I find it hard to believe that twins raised significantly differently would behave exactly the same, but I suspect they would still retain more psychological similarities than the average pair of humans. I think this issue is still much to complicated.


I suspect it all comes down to how much of behavior is inherited, and how much is learned. It seems like an interesting field, and there are a lot of questions that float through my mind, but many of the studies would have ethical issues. Obviously you can't take twins and split them up and send them to different environments. But I wonder how hard-wired our behavior is? For example, a person with trisomy 21 is always going to have Down's syndrome. There is no overcoming that fact - I don't know where the gene therapy field is, but correcting the problem of an extra chromosome in every cell seems beyond at least our current expertise. The same goes for other things like hair color, skin pigmentation, and all the other inherited physical traits we possess. We can superficially alter some things and go on just fine, but only within a very narrow range. We can change hair color and put in colored contacts, etc. But we can't alter the way our individual cells utilize ATP for energy, or the nature of transcription and translation that leads to gene products that make up our physical bodies. I'm not asking for an answer here, but everything physical about us seems to be so strictly controlled by our genetics. The issue of evolutionary psychology seems a tougher one to sell.


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## Philip

DrMike said:


> I suspect it all comes down to how much of behavior is inherited, and how much is learned. It seems like an interesting field, and there are a lot of questions that float through my mind, but many of the studies would have ethical issues. Obviously you can't take twins and split them up and send them to different environments. But I wonder how hard-wired our behavior is? For example, a person with trisomy 21 is always going to have Down's syndrome. There is no overcoming that fact - I don't know where the gene therapy field is, but correcting the problem of an extra chromosome in every cell seems beyond at least our current expertise. The same goes for other things like hair color, skin pigmentation, and all the other inherited physical traits we possess. We can superficially alter some things and go on just fine, but only within a very narrow range. We can change hair color and put in colored contacts, etc. But we can't alter the way our individual cells utilize ATP for energy, or the nature of transcription and translation that leads to gene products that make up our physical bodies. I'm not asking for an answer here, but everything physical about us seems to be so strictly controlled by our genetics. The issue of evolutionary psychology seems a tougher one to sell.


the brain is malleable, comparing hair color to behaviour leads to nowhere.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> the brain is malleable, comparing hair color to behaviour leads to nowhere.


But to what extent? How malleable is it? Mess with key areas, and you are dead. How malleable are those areas that govern behavior? And how do you transmit malleability from one generation to the next? I certainly believe that it is highly malleable, particularly in the early years. I am seeing that first hand as my children grow. But I wonder how much of what they are is unchangeable. Certain instinctual behavior seems to be hard-wired. Issues regarding hunger, or discomfort, or basic thoughts of fairness, even when not equally applied to all. But you can take a child that is basically self-centered and oblivious to the needs of others, and turn them into a caring adult that puts others before self. Is that already imprinted, but takes time to be expressed, or completely learned, or a mixture of both?


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## Philip

DrMike said:


> But to what extent? How malleable is it? Mess with key areas, and you are dead. How malleable are those areas that govern behavior? And how do you transmit malleability from one generation to the next? I certainly believe that it is highly malleable, particularly in the early years. I am seeing that first hand as my children grow. But I wonder how much of what they are is unchangeable. Certain instinctual behavior seems to be hard-wired. Issues regarding hunger, or discomfort, or basic thoughts of fairness, even when not equally applied to all. But you can take a child that is basically self-centered and oblivious to the needs of others, and turn them into a caring adult that puts others before self. Is that already imprinted, but takes time to be expressed, or completely learned, or a mixture of both?


give an adult male anabolic steroids and i guarantee you will notice a change in behaviour.

edit: don't take this the wrong way, but i think you should ease up on trying to explain everything, especially when we don't have to tools to do so... plus i'm told that such a behaviour is unhealthy and could lead to looking for explanations in the mystical world.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> give an adult male anabolic steroids and i guarantee you will notice a change in behaviour.
> 
> edit: don't take this the wrong way, but i think you should ease up on trying to explain everything, especially when we don't have to tools to do so... plus i'm told that such a behaviour is unhealthy and could lead to looking for explanations in the mystical world.


Don't try to explain everything? What exactly do things like the big bang theory and the theory of evolution exactly try to explain, if not everything? Geniuses like Stephen Hawking claim we know enough to know that the idea of God is unnecessary for explaining everything.

And I have mentioned nothing mystical. I am engaging on a scientific level, and have not tried to steer anything towards religious explanations. But since you bring it up - why would it be that the human mind would be drawn to mystical explanations, even in this day and age? Is that hard-wired in our brains? Science is an endeavor to explain all that there is. Science would only cease once all is known - if such a circumstance could ever exist. But I seriously doubt that someone like Hawking, in his ruminations about the universe, ever reaches the point where he starts to look for mystical explanations. Same goes for Dawkins. So unless you are finding yourself veering into the mystical, I had no intention of taking this thread there. I'm here exploring concepts that are not as known to me. I already understand for myself what "mystical" explanations I have for the world. I'm looking now at the non-mystical alternative explanations.


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## Guest

Philip said:


> give an adult male anabolic steroids and i guarantee you will notice a change in behaviour.


But how much is that behavior really changed, or does it merely exaggerate pre-existing behavior? Are those who take anabolic steroids already prone to be more aggressive than others, and all the steroids do is amplify that aggressiveness? Does it turn a person against their innate nature? Would a normally passive person suddenly become excessively aggressive? I have read of 'roid rage, but the examples I have read of have been in individuals that already seemed very aggressive. Are there other examples that don't fit this description?


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## mmsbls

DrMike said:


> The issue of evolutionary psychology seems a tougher one to sell.


Evolutionary psychology _is_ a very difficult field. We don't have enough physical data. Ideally we'd need to identify specific brain modules, understand how they work, understand something about their genetic dependance, and study the physical variation along with the behavioral variation. At this point the moral issues in such studies pale in comparison to the physical problems.

Many studies (and the field in general) have been strongly criticized. One of the main criticisms focuses on the assumptions made of early human psychology and environment. Obviously we did not evolve to deal with financial issues on Wall Street, cosmological problems, or the stress of living in ghettos. Evolutionary psychologists must resort to assumptions made about life on the savannah and what stresses early humans would experience in trying to survive and procreate. Many feel these assumptions are simply not warranted.

I read a fascinating book called A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. The book's thesis is that rape evolved as an adaptation or a by-product of an adaptation and that rape is primarily motivated by sexual desire. I was surprised to see how much data existed that was applicable to the issue. The authors answered such questions as:
- Why does the mental trauma of rape vary with the victim's age and marital status?
- Why does the mental trauma of rape vary with the degree of visible physical injuries to the victim, with more mental trauma associated with fewer injuries?
I found the book's thesis much more believable than other sociological explanations, but I was still left with significant questions about the evidence.

I think the field can answer some interesting questions fairly well. Other behavioral issues will be much harder and take much more time. Ultimately, we might understand to what extent evolution has shaped our behavior and how much is left to environmental variation.


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## Polednice

DrMike said:


> From an evolutionary standpoint, though, what the individual wants and what makes the individual happy is completely irrelevant. Evolution is not an individual phenomenon, rather it works on populations. Darwin's masterpiece was concerned with species, not individuals. So ultimately, if behavior is something that can be transmitted, as dna is transmitted, what makes you happy is irrelevant unless it is beneficial to the entire species. Or, on the unhappy chance that what makes you happy has negative consequences for others (e.g. serial killers, dictators, etc.), presumably your behavior would be selected against.


You're getting confused here. There are _two_ forces at play: cerebral justification, and evolutionary predisposition. My discussion of personal well-being was entirely related to the former.


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## Polednice

P.S. DrMike, it would be very helpful if you tried to focus your questions a bit more, as your slightly rambling paragraphs give the impression that you're just shouting: "Well explain this! And this! And this!" I realise you said that's not your intention, but that style makes it very difficult to engage with you.

I would also briefly say that there is nothing wrong with claiming that the scientific _method_ is sufficient to explain the universe, though we do not have the actual science for a complete description as yet. Does Scripture account for microscopic life-forms or genetics? No, but you wouldn't use this as an argument against the information therein that you choose to believe.

[If your sole purpose here is actually to learn about evolutionary theory, this may not be the best resource.. )


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## Lukecash12

Polednice said:


> But what does personal well-being have to do with morality? I still see no failing with the Golden Rule!


Aside from it being subjective and only indicating some evolutionary factors and not others?


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## Polednice

Lukecash12 said:


> Aside from it being subjective and only indicating some evolutionary factors and not others?


Again.

Cerebral. Evolutionary.

Cerebral. Evolutionary.

CEREBRAL OVER HERE ------ EVOLUTIONARY OVER HERE.

Separate. Different. Ask one question at a time. This thread is clinically insane.


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## Philip

DrMike said:


> But how much is that behavior really changed, or does it merely exaggerate pre-existing behavior? Are those who take anabolic steroids already prone to be more aggressive than others, and all the steroids do is amplify that aggressiveness? Does it turn a person against their innate nature? Would a normally passive person suddenly become excessively aggressive? I have read of 'roid rage, but the examples I have read of have been in individuals that already seemed very aggressive. Are there other examples that don't fit this description?


four words: PTSD


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## Lukecash12

Polednice said:


> Again.
> 
> Cerebral. Evolutionary.
> 
> Cerebral. Evolutionary.
> 
> CEREBRAL OVER HERE ------ EVOLUTIONARY OVER HERE.
> 
> Separate. Different. Ask one question at a time. This thread is clinically insane.


Ravellian was pointing out that it wasn't cerebral, and you told him that there was still no failing in the Golden Rule. The goal is to come up with a reason for morality that isn't arbitrary and subjective, and the Golden Rule hasn't done it, so it _has_ failed, and I am well aware of the universe of discourse.


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## Polednice

Lukecash12 said:


> Ravellian was pointing out that it wasn't cerebral, and you told him that there was still no failing in the Golden Rule. The goal is to come up with a reason for morality that isn't arbitrary and subjective, and the Golden Rule hasn't done it, so it _has_ failed, and I am well aware of the universe of discourse.


Ravellian didn't say it wasn't cerebral, he said it wasn't convincing because it doesn't include an imperative for him to do his homework.

If the goal really and truly is to come up with a reason for morality that is solid and objective, then _no one_ will be successful because, religious or otherwise, no one has the authority to claim any kind of absolute morality. As I said on a previous page (and was subsequently ignored), the non-religious are subject to psychos who take a kind of meaninglessness for granted; the religious are subject to the necessary _subjective_ interpretation of scripture. Only a divine being can know divine will.

The task, therefore, can only be sensible if we are searching for a _practical_ reason to act in a moral way; not to find an objective reason for it because _it is arbitrary, and it is subjective_. The point is that this _doesn't_ therefore mean that one can logically do as one pleases as though all humans are worthless. The motivation to act in a moral way is fundamentally driven out of a sense of self-preservation - _i.e._ avoiding being a murderous knob so that you're not slaughtered by your peers.


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## Ravellian

Polednice said:


> Ravellian didn't say it wasn't cerebral, he said it wasn't convincing because it doesn't include an imperative for him to do his homework.
> 
> If the goal really and truly is to come up with a reason for morality that is solid and objective, then _no one_ will be successful because, religious or otherwise, no one has the authority to claim any kind of absolute morality. As I said on a previous page (and was subsequently ignored), the non-religious are subject to psychos who take a kind of meaninglessness for granted; the religious are subject to the necessary _subjective_ interpretation of scripture. Only a divine being can know divine will.
> 
> The task, therefore, can only be sensible if we are searching for a _practical_ reason to act in a moral way; not to find an objective reason for it because _it is arbitrary, and it is subjective_. The point is that this _doesn't_ therefore mean that one can logically do as one pleases as though all humans are worthless. The motivation to act in a moral way is fundamentally driven out of a sense of self-preservation - _i.e._ avoiding being a murderous knob so that you're not slaughtered by your peers.


Poley, you're being a bit narrow-minded about this. People can act in an 'immoral' way as a means of self-preservation or self-interest too. What about the man who steals because it is the only way that he can feed himself? Or what about the person he cheats on a quiz because he hasn't studied? Or the person who lies to avoid an uncomfortable situation? Or the man who cheats on his wife because he thinks she's gotten fat? The point is, in both every day life and exceptional circumstances, people freely act in ways that society would probably deem immoral. I am trying to understand why, and to me, it appears that there are several perfectly logical ways of rationalizing these behaviors.

The Golden Rule isn't really of any use to anyone. It doesn't explain why we do anything, and it only applies to interactions with other people. I don't understand how you can't grasp the concept of immoral actions against yourself. What about purposely degrading your body by cutting yourself or overeating until you're 400 pounds? Smoking, drug use, excessive alcoholism?


----------



## Polednice

Ravellian, given your position as an atheist, I am surprised that you would go so far as to suggest lying is immoral. Further to that, I'm surprised at how your entire most recent post has the implicit suggestion that morals are absolutes. They are _not_. They are relative.

If a man would otherwise die, power to him to steal some bread. If a man would otherwise be wealthy and content, lock him up for stealing the same.

Should the man consider cheating on his wife, _consider how it would make him feel_ (Golden Rule).

Never mind quizzes and lying, those are trivial and nothing to do with morality.

I don't think that morals are applicable to actions on the self. There is nothing 'immoral' about cutting oneself. It's horrible and damaging and a sign of psychological torment, but it's not 'immoral'. Nor is smoking or alcoholism.

Either I _am_ narrow-minded, or everyone on this thread is just being unnecessarily difficult. I'm inclined to believe the latter!


----------



## Lenfer

graaf said:


> for some reason, that reminded me of this argument.


Mr Hitchens is looking well haven't seen this one before.

Thanks Graaf!


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Polednice said:


> I don't think that morals are applicable to actions on the self.


I believe that this is a defensible position...

_if_ the above-mentioned 'self' is a hermit.

For non-hermits, though, the various forms of self-abuse *can* create upheavals in the lives of those closest to them. To find _moral_ failing in the failure to consider the consequences of self-abuse to the abuser's loved ones is, I think, a reasonable proposition.


----------



## Polednice

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I believe that this is a defensible position...
> 
> _if_ the above-mentioned 'self' is a hermit.
> 
> For non-hermits, though, the various forms of self-abuse *can* create upheavals in the lives of those closest to them. To find _moral_ failing in the failure to consider the consequences of self-abuse to the abuser's loved ones is, I think, a reasonable proposition.


To find a moral failing in another person's self-abuse because of its effects on their loved ones is, I think, entirely selfish of the loved ones who have absolutely no comprehension whatsoever of the kind of psychological pain that drives the self-abuser to abuse. To suggest on top of all their pain that what they do is also immoral is actually quite cruel.


----------



## BarackZero

Ravellian said:


> I guess I'm not being clear enough. Here's an example:
> 
> 1. My wife loves me, and I like her, but I want to see other women as well.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I can cheat on my wife and not feel guilty about it.
> 
> Make sense? I'm not breaking any laws here, but this is still probably considered morally questionable. But yet I can do it without feeling any guilt because of the above rationalization.


Rationalization is what atheists do best. One can only hope that your wife is similarly motivated and bangs away at every Tom, DICK, and Hairy. Then you can rationalize that.

As for what you "will always be," you might ponder C.S. Lewis, the former atheist, and then there's Sir Anthony Flew, who renounced his famous atheist beliefs.

The universe made itself, you believe, out of nothing. Rationalize that away. "Ah," you say, "but if you contend God made everything, who made GOD!"

Why did God have to be "made"? Where is that written?

You see, in our universe, we observe laws, cause and effect, we seek answers assuming that they exist.
God does not exist within our known univese. He MADE the laws atheists attempt to impose on God.

Decades ago, atheists claimed that the universe is SO big, God wouldn't have made it just for humans. Too wasteful.
Today, with the advent of the Anthropic Principle, and the advances in science that portend God's brilliant creations, atheists have spun their rationalization the other direction, now claiming a "Multiverse" consisting of an infinite number of universes.
We just HAPPEN to live in the "right" one.

Tres simple, n'est-ce pas? (wink, nudge)

The Holy Bible answered the "Who made God" conundrum two thousand years ago. "I am." He just is. Either everything made itself out of nothing, or else God is. Both alternatives are incomprehensible to our human minds. My choice is the more elegant of the two.

Now please this:

http://2001principle.net


----------



## Polednice

Ignoring the religious trolling above, I have had a further thought about this thread.

So, Ravellian, I may have entirely misunderstood your purpose here again, but it almost seems as though you're asking what motivation there is to be moral given that people lie/cheat/steal _despite_ our evolutionary predispositions and observance of the Golden Rule. Well - and this is probably the last way I can word this thought I've been battling with! - I don't think there are any other motivations.

For _most_ people, an unconscious reciprocal altruism and a conscious empathy is enough to keep them from crime, and usually enough to keep them from non-criminal immoral acts. If you have no sense of immediate empathy, then you ought to rationalise: "I want to do immoral X to/despite someone, but would I like it if X was done to me?" If you wouldn't care if someone did X to you, then go ahead and do it, and people will gradually realise that you are someone to be avoided and will stop associating with you.

If you're asking for a moral motivation that is sufficient to stop anyone from ever lying, cheating, and stealing, then you are asking for something which quite obviously doesn't exist.


----------



## BarackZero

How is it, Polednice, that atheist trolling is quite acceptable to you?
How does that work?

Talking atheism until the stars turn cold is peachy keen, but never EVER speak of God and the Holy Bible.

Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


----------



## Philip

BarackZero said:


> How is it, Polednice, that atheist trolling is quite acceptable to you?
> How does that work?
> 
> Talking atheism until the stars turn cold is peachy keen, but never EVER speak of God and the Holy Bible.
> 
> Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


----------



## Couchie

BarackZero said:


> How is it, Polednice, that atheist trolling is quite acceptable to you?
> How does that work?
> 
> Talking atheism until the stars turn cold is peachy keen, but never EVER speak of God and the Holy Bible.
> 
> Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


You're quite the charmer, aren't you?

On behalf of all of us here at TalkClassical, (even us atheists who DARE speak of he-who-must-not-be-named and his bestselling book), I'd like to extend you a warm welcome. :wave:


----------



## Polednice

BarackZero said:


> How is it, Polednice, that atheist trolling is quite acceptable to you?
> How does that work?
> 
> Talking atheism until the stars turn cold is peachy keen, but never EVER speak of God and the Holy Bible.
> 
> Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


If you speak to me so insolently ever again, I will drag you screaming to the underworld. You will be bent double over your entrails, begging to be reunited with the innards I'll have ripped from your gut, and, undying but always painfully near death, a darkness will descend on your mind and you will eternally wish for an end that I will not allow.

So watch your tongue.


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## samurai

You go, Polednice! :lol:


----------



## Sid James

Looks like this forumula is how things work here @ TC re these issues:

Debate about Philosophy + religion = arguments ad nauseum....leading to thread MELT DOWN and LOCK DOWN...

That's my prediction & I'm no Nostradamus...


----------



## samurai

Sid James said:


> Looks like this forumula is how things work here @ TC re these issues:
> 
> Debate about Philosophy + religion = arguments ad nauseum....leading to thread MELT DOWN and LOCK DOWN...
> 
> That's my prediction & I'm no Nostradamus...


And also, maybe some people being banned because they cannot/will not control their zealotry and their over arching need to "convert" others to their way of thinking, most especially egregrious when questions of religion and faith--or lack thereof--are involved. It is indeed--as you so aptly point out--quite predictable once people start down this road. Will we never learn?


----------



## Sid James

^^ Yep, funny how people here are pretty even-keeled and middle of the road when it comes to music but not politics, religion, philosophy, etc. (eg. I've never been criticised in a long time here about what I do or don't listen to, despite some hiccups & clashes, no irreperable damage has been done). If I like a whole lot of composers and not a few, am selective depending on my tastes, experiences, world view, needs, etc. that is okay, we're all individuals. People at TC understand this - on the whole - with music, but why not with the other things? It's wierd as a lot of people here are quite reasonable, or appear to be so, in the area of music at least...


----------



## Ravellian

Polednice said:


> Ignoring the religious trolling above, I have had a further thought about this thread.
> 
> So, Ravellian, I may have entirely misunderstood your purpose here again, but it almost seems as though you're asking what motivation there is to be moral given that people lie/cheat/steal _despite_ our evolutionary predispositions and observance of the Golden Rule. Well - and this is probably the last way I can word this thought I've been battling with! - I don't think there are any other motivations.


Actually, my current thinking is more along the lines of... since current moral theories, including the Golden Rule, are obviously so inaccurate in explaining how humans _actually_ behave, it leads one to doubt the applicability and usefulness of moral theory in general. Since it doesn't accurately describe reality, we should look elsewhere for justification of why we should behave in a certain way. Perhaps that justification can be found in behavioral science. Then, instead of:

- A vague "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

You would have:
- Do good to others and yourself or else, thousands of scientific studies have shown it to be reasonably certain that you will have a less fulfilling life with fewer friends, a less successful career and less happiness.

The second is obviously the more convincing, no? I doubt science could provide something that is quite so conclusive as that, but if it could, it would be highly motivating.


----------



## samurai

IMHO, Sid, it is because because some people really believe that "God is on their side", and that therefore, everything they say or believe must absolutely and divinely right. We even have people--such as our former "illustrious" President--who have the temerity to claim that God has spoken *directly* *with* *them *and told them what to do, so how can they--or their actions--possibly be wrong, since God has approved of them.


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## Guest

I don't really care much either way because we will never know, we are not capable of knowing....... thank god


----------



## Polednice

Sid James said:


> Looks like this forumula is how things work here @ TC re these issues:
> 
> Debate about Philosophy + religion = arguments ad nauseum....leading to thread MELT DOWN and LOCK DOWN...
> 
> That's my prediction & I'm no Nostradamus...


 I've never noticed that before! I'm adding to my staff:

Henchmen: Clavichorder and Klavierspieler
Soothsayer: Sid James


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Chi_townPhilly said:


> For non-hermits, though, the various forms of self-abuse can create upheavals in the lives of those closest to them. To find moral failing in the failure to consider the consequences of self-abuse to the abuser's loved ones is, I think, a reasonable proposition.
> 
> 
> Polednice said:
> 
> 
> 
> To find a moral failing in another person's self-abuse because of its effects on their loved ones is, I think, entirely selfish of the loved ones who have absolutely no comprehension whatsoever of the kind of psychological pain that drives the self-abuser to abuse. To suggest on top of all their pain that what they do is also immoral is actually quite cruel.
Click to expand...

Two points-
1) There's an implicit premise that the root-cause of self-abuse is, in all cases, pyschological pain. It's a premise that I don't share.
2) Whether or not loved ones have comprehension of psychological pain, I'd say, is a function of the furtiveness of the abuser, and the perceptiveness of the loved ones. In other words, it may or may not be so... but I think the "no comprehension" label fails as a blanket statement.

I'm left with the impression that you've had some experience(s) that have tracked in accordance with your statement. Obviously (if so), they were/are VERY real, and hope that those involved have/will -- made/make it through to the other side of the travails with the worst of it clearly behind them.

[Apologies to the remainder of the readership for the digression...]


----------



## Polednice

Chi_townPhilly said:


> 1) There's an implicit premise that the root-cause of self-abuse is, in all cases, pyschological pain. It's a premise that I don't share.


Maybe not psychological _pain_, but there is certainly a psychological _problem_ in every instance, even if it's just that someone is so messed up that they use self-harm as a way of seeking attention.



Chi_townPhilly said:


> 2) Whether or not loved ones have comprehension of psychological pain, I'd say, is a function of the furtiveness of the abuser, and the perceptiveness of the loved ones. In other words, it may or may not be so... but I think the "no comprehension" label fails as a blanket statement.


By "comprehension", I did not mean an empathetic understanding, I meant an actual, full comprehension of what is going through the self-abusers mind. This is one of those things that people cannot fully comprehend unless they have experienced it themselves.

P.S. I've never harmed myself; just experienced severe depression.


----------



## graaf

BarackZero said:


> Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


Many things throughout the history were done by proclaimed theists simply because people did not dare to declare themselves otherwise. Also, atheism is not thing for itself, it is a term that denotes absence of something. The reason we have word atheist, but not non-astrologer is only because religion is far stronger force in society than astrology is - both words are equally empty of content. Many of us (who do not believe in Bible, Jesus, church, etc) do not think about ourselves as atheists - for many of us (but not all) it is a word religious people use to talk about us: it's politically correct version of "infidel". Also, once we stop believing (if we ever did) in Bible, Jesus, etc, we often do not need another belief system to substitute for religion, many of us simply shook of a superstition without acquiring a new one.

Therefore, any attempt to say anything meaningful about atheism stops after saying that we do not believe in God, Bible, Jesus, etc. One of the things people erroneously think is that we're all crazy about Darwin, or that we're nihilistic - atheism is not nihilism: abandoning the only life we (can be _sure_ of to) have for the imaginary one is far more nihilistic than living this life to the fullest.


----------



## GoneBaroque

BarackZero said:


> Tell me, Polednice, what is the most famous classical oratorio or aria which celebrates nihilism, atheism, and the like. Take your time. I'll wait.


Not certain how famous it is but The Mass of Life by Frederick Delius has a text taken from Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra. to my knowledge it has been recorded twice; first by Sir Thomas Beecham and later by Sir Charles Groves. It is a tremendous piece of music.


----------



## science

On the original point: Does anything matter in an atheistic universe?

Yes, some of it matters _to me_.

That's all a theist can have, anyway. If there were a god who regarded our universe and our lives as unimportant, hopefully the theist would have the courage of her convictions to continue to care about the things that matter to her. If there is a god that regards some part of the universe as vitally important, but a theist does not share the god's emotion, again, hopefully the theist would be brave enough to care about the things that actually do matter to her.

We can illustrate the point by considering a non-anthropomorphic god. Consider a super-chicken-spirit. An all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present, invisible hen spirit, the creator of the universe. To that god, sitting on eggs would be a vitally important value, and scrambling them would be an eternally unforgivable offense. And still, if it turns out that the hen god exists, hopefully I will continue to regard, say, my family's health as more important than sitting on eggs, and spend my time accordingly. (Edit for clarity: Even though the contrast may be less stark, the point is that a theist needn't necessarily share her values with an anthropomorphic deity either.)


----------



## science

I've thought about the atheist culture issue a lot (we "don't have no songs" or architecture or whatever) and have come to the conclusion that it is actually completely wrong. The wealth of secular culture can compete with any religious tradition, in any field. It has been at least a century and maybe two or even three since the majority of the greatest works of art were religious--this applies to music, literature, drama, opera, film, architecture, art, dance, interior design, sculpture, painting, fashion, or any other arguably "artistic" endeavor that I can think of.

Further, even during the religious eras, the greatest artists were often secular or anti-religious. The great Tang Dynasty poets didn't spend much of their efforts praising the Jade Emperor or Buddha; the Middle East gave us the incomparable 1001 Nights and Omar Khayyam; and Shakespeare was at best indifferent to religion. Some of the best parts of the Bible itself aren't all that enthusiastic about religion--Esther doesn't mention any deity (though it's obviously based on Babylonian myth), Ecclesiastes is probably the wisest part of the Bible and has almost no mention of God, and the most moral parts of the Bible are the prophets who tell us to worry about the widows and the orphans rather than the temple or the religious law.


----------



## Lukecash12

> Esther doesn't mention any deity (though it's obviously based on Babylonian myth), Ecclesiastes is probably the wisest part of the Bible and has almost no mention of God, and the most moral parts of the Bible are the prophets who tell us to worry about the widows and the orphans rather than the temple or the religious law.


 Dude, you're nuts.


----------



## Chris

science said:


> Further, even during the religious eras, the greatest artists were often secular or anti-religious. The great Tang Dynasty poets didn't spend much of their efforts praising the Jade Emperor or Buddha; the Middle East gave us the incomparable 1001 Nights and Omar Khayyam; and Shakespeare was at best indifferent to religion. Some of the best parts of the Bible itself aren't all that enthusiastic about religion--*Esther doesn't mention any deity (though it's obviously based on Babylonian myth)*, Ecclesiastes is probably the wisest part of the Bible and has almost no mention of God, and the most moral parts of the Bible are the prophets who tell us to worry about the widows and the orphans rather than the temple or the religious law.


One of the glories of the Bible is the variety of form and style found throughout its 66 books. Esther does indeed contain no explicit mention of God. God is in it nonetheless. First of all, the book is nothing to do with either Babylon or myths. It is a history book set in the reign of the Medo-Persian King Xerxes, well after the disappearance of the Babylonian empire. It fits perfectly with the rest of the Bible because its most obvious theme is the attempt by the world to destroy the Jewish nation (through the wicked Haman) and the Jews' subsequent deliverance. This goes right back to God's prophecy to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15

*I will put emnity between you [the serpent; Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.*

Thus Satan knew that man's salvation, and consequently his own destruction, would be born of Eve's godly offspring (as opposed to Cain's worldly offspring). Satan knows he must destroy that child. This is the secret spiritual impetus behind such events as Pharaoh ordering all the Jewish baby boys to be thrown into the Nile, and Herod's massacre of the boys aged under two in Bethlehem. The historical principal is set out pictorially in Revelation 12: 1_f_

*A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.*

The identity of the male child should be obvious.

Esther fits in with this great theme. Haman uses his huge influence in the Persian court to persuade Xerxes to authorise the annihilation of the entire Jewish race. But the real spiritual motivation (unknown to Haman) was Satan's attempt to prevent the birth of the prophecied Saviour. The salvation of the Jews in Esther comes through a series of remarkable coincidences, such as Xerxes being unable to sleep, calling for the chronicles to be read, and discovering the worthy conduct of Esther's uncle Mordecai and the subsequent discomfiture of Haman. This is why God is not mentioned. The lesson for God's persecuted people in all ages is that God is working in providence on their behalf even when he cannot be perceived.


----------



## Guest

With as much as atheists seem to dislike the assumptions made about them by non-atheists, I find it immensely entertaining reading from atheists who seem to have my religious views completely figured out. I had no idea I believed some of these things.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Chris said:


> ... Esther fits in with this great theme. Haman uses his huge influence in the Persian court to persuade Xerxes to authorise the annihilation of the entire Jewish race. But the real spiritual motivation (unknown to Haman) was Satan's attempt to prevent the birth of the prophecied Saviour. The salvation of the Jews in Esther comes through a series of remarkable coincidences, such as Xerxes being unable to sleep, calling for the chronicles to be read, and discovering the worthy conduct of Esther's uncle Mordecai and the subsequent discomfiture of Haman. This is why God is not mentioned. The lesson for God's persecuted people in all ages is that God is working in providence on their behalf even when he cannot be perceived.


Damn. The only Esther and Xerxes I know are the oratorio and opera respectively, written by Handel.


----------



## graaf

DrMike said:


> With as much as atheists seem to dislike the assumptions made about them by non-atheists, I find it immensely entertaining reading from atheists who seem to have my religious views completely figured out. I had no idea I believed some of these things.


That's not that rare, that's the case with many Christians. Christopher Hitchens often complained that he had to educate some of the people he debated, or people who would ask questions at the end of the debate. He was literally in a situation in which a guy would defend Catholicism, and Hitchens would have to correct him, to explain to him what Catholic doctrine actually says, before he would answer the question or debate a guy (I don't think it's much different with other denominations).

That's why some people say that Bible is like a software license - nobody reads it, everybody just presses "accept".

PS
By the way, the usage of "non-atheists" was priceless.


----------



## Lukecash12

graaf said:


> That's not that rare, that's the case with many Christians. Christopher Hitchens often complained that he had to educate some of the people he debated, or people who would ask questions at the end of the debate. He was literally in a situation in which a guy would defend Catholicism, and Hitchens would have to correct him, to explain to him what Catholic doctrine actually says, before he would answer the question or debate a guy (I don't think it's much different with other denominations).
> 
> That's why some people say that Bible is like a software license - nobody reads it, everybody just presses "accept".
> 
> PS
> By the way, the usage of "non-atheists" was priceless.


Dr. Mike was not proposing a measuring contest. He happens to be well aware of his denomination's doctrines, of all of the scriptures, and was pointing out that it has been his experience that atheists presume things about his beliefs that are not true. Basically: Get your panties out of a bundle, bro.


----------



## mmsbls

It would be shocking if atheists were not misunderstood by many religious people and vice versa. Both atheists and religious people are human, and humans have a great ability to make improper assumptions about those unlike themselves. 

One difference between the two groups is that the atheist position (on God and religion) is pretty easy to understand - they don't believe in God. The religious person's position is much harder - their specific religious views vary considerably. I remember being very frustrated when I was young because I would ask Christians about their faith and get enormously different answers. I'm older and wiser now and have a much better appreciation for that diversity.


----------



## Guest

graaf said:


> That's not that rare, that's the case with many Christians. Christopher Hitchens often complained that he had to educate some of the people he debated, or people who would ask questions at the end of the debate. He was literally in a situation in which a guy would defend Catholicism, and Hitchens would have to correct him, to explain to him what Catholic doctrine actually says, before he would answer the question or debate a guy (I don't think it's much different with other denominations).
> 
> That's why some people say that Bible is like a software license - nobody reads it, everybody just presses "accept".
> 
> PS
> By the way, the usage of "non-atheists" was priceless.


Ah, Hitchens. I love reading what he writes and listening to him. His intellect and wit make him interesting to listen to, even if you completely disagree with every word he says. I do hope he pulls through his struggle with cancer, but understand it is quite serious.

That being said, he is an insufferable know-it-all.

And certainly just because Hitchens engaged one individual who could not speak authoritatively about his religion doesn't mean the same goes for all. Simply looking at a previous thread by Lukecash12 shows that religious individuals are quite capable of looking extensively and intellectually at their beliefs. I seriously doubt that Hitchens would be able to tell Lukecash12 things about his beliefs that he is not aware of. Certainly no religious person claims to have all answers, but that is not unique to religion.

But I just laugh at atheists coming up with these examples, like some extra-terrestrial god-chicken to illustrate a point about religion, and thinking they have been quite clever in their analogy, when as a religious person, I just look at it and say, "That says absolutely nothing about what I believe, nor does it in any way approximate my religiously informed world views."

And to go off on a tangent - the spaghetti gods, the divine chickens, it is all just ridiculous. From everything we know about our world, there is nothing that would suggest a supreme being bearing any resemblance to poultry or pasta. Only man is able to significantly interact with his environment in any way that could even be remotely god-like - genetic manipulation, test tube babies, cloning, advanced chemistry, discerning the makeup of the universe at the sub-atomic level. So if there is a supreme being, odds are that if it bears any resemblance to anything on this planet, it would be man, or else something else so completely foreign and unknown to us.


----------



## Guest

It would be interesting to know exactly what the "religious" members do believe


----------



## Guest

Andante said:


> It would be interesting to know exactly what the "religious" members do believe


Not in this thread, though. And exactly which religion? Because, you know, we don't all believe in celestial poultry.


----------



## Kopachris

DrMike said:


> Andante said:
> 
> 
> 
> It would be interesting to know exactly what the "religious" members do believe
> 
> 
> 
> Not in this thread, though. And exactly which religion? Because, you know, we don't all believe in celestial poultry.
Click to expand...

I wonder if we have any Pastafarians around here...


----------



## Guest

DrMike said:


> Not in this thread, though. And exactly which religion? Because, you know, we don't all believe in celestial poultry.


Any religion at all or is too personal?


----------



## Lukecash12

I'm a nondenominational Evangelical Christian. I don't want to tell the Doc what he is for him, although him and I had a discussion a while back that made me passionate about studying his church, and come to think of it I'd like to chat with him again.

These are my beliefs:

I believe in *The* Triune God, as spelled out hermeneutically to me in the scriptures, and elucidated by the Athanasian Creed.

I believe in *The* God who is Tri-Omni.

I believe the scriptures are inspired. Relative to that belief, I do not believe they must be "scientifically or historically accurate" (although they're heavily historically accurate, especially when compared to other Near Eastern cuneiform documents and historical annals), because their genre is not scientific or historical (aside from Kings, Chronicles, Judges, and the Pentateuch starting with the patriarchal narratives). It's a basic literary requirement to understand what genre you are reading when you are reading something, so genre is on the top of my hermeneutical and exegetical checklist. Because I exegete passages and practice hermeneutics most often with genre in mind (as well as ever other literary element that I know of), I do not see any trouble in believing that macro evolution and big bang cosmology are true theories. The book of Genesis is, to me, obviously oral tradition, because of it's literary qualities and because it uses the linguistics of several different authors. It is my professional appraisal that Moses compiled the oral traditions of his people into the book of Genesis, and because the creation account was a popular genre amongst the Near Easterners of that time period, I see it as a set of theological statements- not a scientific account.

I do believe that the scriptures are infallible, because it is my expert appraisal that none of the current manuscript issues actually affect doctrine. This is considered a basically inscrutable appraisal by biblical scholars, secular and religious alike.

I believe that women can be ministers. Christians debate over whether or not Paul meant for Christians everywhere to keep the women from teaching and speaking in church. My position was not come to lightly, and I've thought of writing an article on it.

I believe in a biblical soteriology (perspective on salvation) that simply weens out sincerity, and nothing else. Moreover, I believe that older order Christians and Reformation Christians have the same soteriology, but they express it differently and equivocate James and Paul differently. I've argued that they are basically misinformed of both relevant pieces of NT literature, and have seen intellectual giants such as Father Pacwa and Walter Martin nearly come to agreement on this issue, so I don't think the two are so far from each other if the foremost experts of that time (the 80's) could agree on so much.

I do not believe in an Apostolic Authority, or See, where doctrine is ordinated by deacons, priests, bishops, arch-bishops, and popes. Neither do I believe that the Pope, or anyone claiming Apostolic Authority, can make a proclamation ex cathedra (before the council and with their support) that is always infallible. Ex cathedra statements have even contradicted themselves, so supposing that they are infallible is a non sequitur.

I believe in the practice of Apologetics, as supported by Peter in 1st Peter, and as supported by the Apologetics practiced by Paul in Acts and his epistles, and Peter in Acts (on the day of Pentecost). It has been my experience, that there must be a basic agreement with and understanding of Christianity, as well as acceptable reasons for the target individual to believe in it, in order to develop a Christian.

I decidedly do not believe in proselytizing those from other denominations, and merely make my faith and apologetics visible and available to non-Christians around me. It has been my experience, and it has been my understanding of the Bible, that I cannot effectively bring someone to Christ by having discourse with them with a parental tone. My faith, rationality, and unique regard for other people is and has been enough to encourage people to discuss mature themes with me, and even opened them up when I said that I would like to share Christianity with them. My studies, articles, and seminary credentials can be helpful when it comes to skeptical people, who maybe would like to disparage me, but my confidence and education is capable of winning them over from time to time, and my well practiced lines of conversation and rationalization can be helpful to other people disposed not to be Christians.

P.S. If you have any other questions, I am comfortable answering them. Also, you may be interested to know that I pastor a small church with a dozen members.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Andante said:


> It would be interesting to know ehat the "religious" members do believe.
> 
> 
> DrMike said:
> 
> 
> 
> Not in this thread, though.
Click to expand...

I think the instinct to refrain from discussing theist beliefs in this particular thread is a sound one. I understand that the tangent resulted from a sincere response to a sincere question... but I think this takes us a little too far off-topic for the particular subject-header.

I certainly don't want to inhibit that topic of discussion... but I feel it would be a matter best addressed in another thread.


----------



## science

Chris said:


> One of the glories of the Bible is the variety of form and style found throughout its 66 books. Esther does indeed contain no explicit mention of God. God is in it nonetheless. First of all, the book is nothing to do with either Babylon or myths. It is a history book set in the reign of the Medo-Persian King Xerxes, well after the disappearance of the Babylonian empire. It fits perfectly with the rest of the Bible because its most obvious theme is the attempt by the world to destroy the Jewish nation (through the wicked Haman) and the Jews' subsequent deliverance. This goes right back to God's prophecy to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15
> 
> *I will put emnity between you [the serpent; Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.*
> 
> Thus Satan knew that man's salvation, and consequently his own destruction, would be born of Eve's godly offspring (as opposed to Cain's worldly offspring). Satan knows he must destroy that child. This is the secret spiritual impetus behind such events as Pharaoh ordering all the Jewish baby boys to be thrown into the Nile, and Herod's massacre of the boys aged under two in Bethlehem. The historical principal is set out pictorially in Revelation 12: 1_f_
> 
> *A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.*
> 
> The identity of the male child should be obvious.
> 
> Esther fits in with this great theme. Haman uses his huge influence in the Persian court to persuade Xerxes to authorise the annihilation of the entire Jewish race. But the real spiritual motivation (unknown to Haman) was Satan's attempt to prevent the birth of the prophecied Saviour. The salvation of the Jews in Esther comes through a series of remarkable coincidences, such as Xerxes being unable to sleep, calling for the chronicles to be read, and discovering the worthy conduct of Esther's uncle Mordecai and the subsequent discomfiture of Haman. This is why God is not mentioned. The lesson for God's persecuted people in all ages is that God is working in providence on their behalf even when he cannot be perceived.


Most of this is irrelevant. Esther is Ishtar, Mordecai is Marduk, and so on. It's an exciting story. The lesson you draw from it came from your head (or better, your tradition's head), not the text itself.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> Dude, you're nuts.





Lukecash12 said:


> Get your panties out of a bundle, bro.


Can atheists (in particular, I) get away with comments like this too?



DrMike said:


> Not in this thread, though. And exactly which religion? Because, you know, we don't all believe in celestial poultry.


Yup, that was the point. You never fail.


----------



## Lukecash12

> Can atheists (in particular, I) get away with comments like this too?


Sure. If I make a redonkulous and unsupported claim, feel free to use some humor with me. Really, feel free to use some humor with me any time. I've edit*not*edit had a problem with stuff like Phillip's Ali G is Indahouse clips; My issues have been clearly expressed, that I do not appreciate it when people use ad hominem argumentation against me, and that I do not appreciate it when they disparage my character and expertise.

Also, I'm guessing at this point that the actual topic of the thread has been finished with for now, Chi, good sir and super mod. So, would it make sense of us to start up another thread, or would it make sense if we just went on like this and Dr Mike pointed out his own beliefs here?


----------



## graaf

DrMike said:


> From everything we know about our world, there is nothing that would suggest a supreme being bearing any resemblance to poultry or pasta.


From everything we know about the world, there is nothing that would suggest a supreme being _even exists_. Note that the poultry and pasta are _intentionaly_ ridiculous examples used to show that any idea, no matter how ridiculous, can act as the God of gaps.


DrMike said:


> Only man is able to significantly interact with his environment in any way that could even be remotely god-like - genetic manipulation, test tube babies, cloning, advanced chemistry, discerning the makeup of the universe at the sub-atomic level. So if there is a supreme being, odds are that if it bears any resemblance to anything on this planet, it would be man, or else something else so completely foreign and unknown to us.


Simply because man has brain evolved enough to toy itself with idea of God, man gives his God man's own abilities augmented by the order of magnitude - we play with elemental particles in CERN, he played with them when he created universe, we play with DNA, he is master of that game because he made DNA. Your post is one of the most clear examples of "anthropomorphic ideas about God". The point is that, if dolphins had the idea of God, they would say that God has to be dolphin-like, because "_only dolphins can interact with environment in any way that could even be remotely god-like_", they do aquatic acrobations in such a way, that only god can do more complex acrobatics than them.

For more see Xenophanes.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> I do not appreciate it when people use ad hominem argumentation against me


Well that's ironic.

Or, I suppose not. Perhaps "normal" is a better description.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

I'm surprised to see some non-atheists "help" with answering the question the Atheists were trying to figure out.  Really, it would just be neat to sit back and watch instead.

If I ought to add some comment, I'll just say "right on!" to LukeCash, and also add my agreement to the idea of "nothing really matters" is an oxymoron, because just like the statement "there is no absolute truth," it's holding to the fact that it _matters _to realize/say nothing really matters.  So, _something _has to matter in life, even if it's to make your own judgments about life. And if I would want to make a statement about life, I would first have to admit that I couldn't with my own knowledge and skill.


----------



## Couchie

Anybody else always mentally sing "nothing really matters" à la Bohemian Rhapsody whenever they read the thread title?


----------



## graaf

Couchie said:


> Anybody else always mentally sing "nothing really matters" à la Bohemian Rhapsody whenever they read the thread title?


I actually sing "Mama, just killed a man...", that part is the most memorable to me, but yeah, basically the same thing here.


----------



## Chris

Chris said:


> One of the glories of the Bible is the variety of form and style found throughout its 66 books. Esther does indeed contain no explicit mention of God. God is in it nonetheless. First of all, the book is nothing to do with either Babylon or myths. It is a history book set in the reign of the Medo-Persian King Xerxes, well after the disappearance of the Babylonian empire. It fits perfectly with the rest of the Bible because its most obvious theme is the attempt by the world to destroy the Jewish nation (through the wicked Haman) and the Jews' subsequent deliverance. This goes right back to God's prophecy to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15
> 
> *I will put emnity between you [the serpent; Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.*
> 
> Thus Satan knew that man's salvation, and consequently his own destruction, would be born of Eve's godly offspring (as opposed to Cain's worldly offspring). Satan knows he must destroy that child. This is the secret spiritual impetus behind such events as Pharaoh ordering all the Jewish baby boys to be thrown into the Nile, and Herod's massacre of the boys aged under two in Bethlehem. The historical principal is set out pictorially in Revelation 12: 1_f_
> 
> *A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.*
> 
> The identity of the male child should be obvious.
> 
> Esther fits in with this great theme. Haman uses his huge influence in the Persian court to persuade Xerxes to authorise the annihilation of the entire Jewish race. But the real spiritual motivation (unknown to Haman) was Satan's attempt to prevent the birth of the prophecied Saviour. The salvation of the Jews in Esther comes through a series of remarkable coincidences, such as Xerxes being unable to sleep, calling for the chronicles to be read, and discovering the worthy conduct of Esther's uncle Mordecai and the subsequent discomfiture of Haman. This is why God is not mentioned. The lesson for God's persecuted people in all ages is that God is working in providence on their behalf even when he cannot be perceived.





science said:


> Most of this is irrelevant. Esther is Ishtar, Mordecai is Marduk, and so on. It's an exciting story. The lesson you draw from it came from your head (or better, your tradition's head), not the text itself.


As I have not said what my sources are you are a little hasty attributing my interpretions to 'your tradition's head'. But let that pass. I will make another attempt to explain the relevance of my (extremely condensed) thoughts on Esther to your original comments.

Attempts to attribute the books of the Bible to neighbouring foreign cultures go back at least two or three centuries. One of the counterarguments is to look for themes in the books which point to the overall unity of the Bible and firmly cement the constituent books into the biblical canon. And there is no grander theme than Redemption in Christ, which runs like a golden thread from Genesis to Revelation. I do not say the references will be explicit. Remember Jesus spoke in parable, heiroglyph and metaphor with the deliberate intent of hiding truths from unbelieving hearts while revealing them to the faithful. I have heard the book of Exodus dismissed as a creation of ancient Jewish political leaders, written for the purpose of unifying the tribes. But when I read about the Passover, how the male lamb without blemish was sacrificed, and how its blood saved God's people from the hand of the Angel of Death, I think of Christ and his atoning sacrifice. I do not know what modern unbelief has made of the book of Job. But when Job cries out 'I know that my Redeemer lives and that one day he will stand upon the earth' I can only see Christ. The remarkable Messianic Psalms point to a King infinitely greater than King David. None of these things are explicitly 'in the text itself' (to use your expression), because like the meanings of Jesus' parables some things have to be spiritually discerned.


----------



## Polednice

DrMike said:


> From everything we know about our world, there is nothing that would suggest a supreme being bearing any resemblance to poultry or pasta.


Got it in one! Now if we can just get you to extend that to a few more life forms...


----------



## Guest

Polednice said:


> Got it in one! Now if we can just get you to extend that to a few more life forms...


Okay, I will also stipulate that a supreme being is most likely not going to resemble vampire pigs or euglenas.


----------



## HerlockSholmes

DrMike said:


> Okay, I will also stipulate that a supreme being is most likely not going to resemble vampire pigs or euglenas.


What is a supreme being anyway? A miserable pile of little imaginary friends, that's what it is!

I'm joking, by the way.


----------



## science

Chris said:


> As I have not said what my sources are you are a little hasty attributing my interpretions to 'your tradition's head'. But let that pass. I will make another attempt to explain the relevance of my (extremely condensed) thoughts on Esther to your original comments.
> 
> Attempts to attribute the books of the Bible to neighbouring foreign cultures go back at least two or three centuries. One of the counterarguments is to look for themes in the books which point to the overall unity of the Bible and firmly cement the constituent books into the biblical canon. And there is no grander theme than Redemption in Christ, which runs like a golden thread from Genesis to Revelation. I do not say the references will be explicit. Remember Jesus spoke in parable, heiroglyph and metaphor with the deliberate intent of hiding truths from unbelieving hearts while revealing them to the faithful. I have heard the book of Exodus dismissed as a creation of ancient Jewish political leaders, written for the purpose of unifying the tribes. But when I read about the Passover, how the male lamb without blemish was sacrificed, and how its blood saved God's people from the hand of the Angel of Death, I think of Christ and his atoning sacrifice. I do not know what modern unbelief has made of the book of Job. But when Job cries out 'I know that my Redeemer lives and that one day he will stand upon the earth' I can only see Christ. The remarkable Messianic Psalms point to a King infinitely greater than King David. None of these things are explicitly 'in the text itself' (to use your expression), because like the meanings of Jesus' parables some things have to be spiritually discerned.


I find theological interpretations of the Bible interesting for what they reveal about the tradition that makes them, but when I actually want to understand the text itself I try to free myself of later centuries' interpretations and figure out what it would have meant in the communities that originally produced, transmitted, and edited it.

This is something we should do with any text - not only the Bible, but Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Lao Tzu, the Vedas: all present issues like this. To be intellectually consistent, we have to approach each text with the same tools and the same methods. It is interesting to know what later generations made of Plato's _Timaeus_ as it is to know what later generations made of Genesis, but we cannot let the later generations shout down the communities that produced the text.


----------



## science

Speaking from an Orthodox Christian point of view, as I once could 

A problem for Evangelical Christians is that for all their emphasis on faith, in intellectual matters they are in fact epistemological foundationalists. Intellectually, that is, they put their faith in the Bible rather than in God, treating it analogously to a set of axioms from which a theological geometry can be derived. So there is an emphasis on hermeneutics, the essentially secular process by which legitimate propositions (doctrines) can be derived from the axioms, rather than on seeking divine guidance: foundationalism is inherently secular, inherently incompatible with faith. The paradox is clearest when we meet apologists trying to prove their faith.

A faith-based theology, by contrast, does not have a problem distinguishing between the original meaning of a Biblical text and later interpretations, because it can admit that God might have spoken through the later communities as well as the original one. Although this perspective strips us of any supposedly infallible method of evaluating doctrines, it also requires us to place much greater emphasis on prayer and grace than on hermeneutics. The floor is swept out from under us, now we live by faith rather than foundation. Theology will now be more analogous to history than to mathematics, but ultimately it will be prayer rather than any secular discipline. 

I realize that the Christians here by-and-large will reject this, not only because it comes from an atheist swine like me who cannot possibly have the slightest insight into anything and does not even deserve to have his posts read charitably, but also because it requires a very challenging rethinking, reorienting of their perspective. Nevertheless, once in a great while a difference is made.


----------



## Lukecash12

science said:


> Speaking from an Orthodox Christian point of view, as I once could
> 
> A problem for Evangelical Christians is that for all their emphasis on faith, in intellectual matters they are in fact epistemological foundationalists. Intellectually, that is, they put their faith in the Bible rather than in God, treating it analogously to a set of axioms from which a theological geometry can be derived. So there is an emphasis on hermeneutics, the essentially secular process by which legitimate propositions (doctrines) can be derived from the axioms, rather than on seeking divine guidance: foundationalism is inherently secular, inherently incompatible with faith. The paradox is clearest when we meet apologists trying to prove their faith.
> 
> A faith-based theology, by contrast, does not have a problem distinguishing between the original meaning of a Biblical text and later interpretations, because it can admit that God might have spoken through the later communities as well as the original one. Although this perspective strips us of any supposedly infallible method of evaluating doctrines, it also requires us to place much greater emphasis on prayer and grace than on hermeneutics. The floor is swept out from under us, now we live by faith rather than foundation. Theology will now be more analogous to history than to mathematics, but ultimately it will be prayer rather than any secular discipline.
> 
> I realize that the Christians here by-and-large will reject this, not only because it comes from an atheist swine like me who cannot possibly have the slightest insight into anything and does not even deserve to have his posts read charitably, but also because it requires a very challenging rethinking, reorienting of their perspective. Nevertheless, once in a great while a difference is made.


It's interesting that you say that, when journals like this abound:

http://www.stthomas.edu/CathStudies/logos/
http://www.anselm.edu/Institutes-Ce...aint-Anselm-Journal/Archives/Author-Index.htm
http://www.stthomas.edu/CathStudies/logos/
http://www.ecclsoc.org/eccltoday.html
http://www.orthodox-theology.com/

Older order Christians endorse rationalism as well, and great intellectuals like Father Pacwa (member of the Jesuits) have practiced Orthodox Apologetics. There are tons of professors with doctorates from the Orthodox groups, not just priests and bishops.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> It's interesting that you say that, when journals like this abound:
> 
> http://www.stthomas.edu/CathStudies/logos/
> http://www.anselm.edu/Institutes-Ce...aint-Anselm-Journal/Archives/Author-Index.htm
> http://www.stthomas.edu/CathStudies/logos/
> http://www.ecclsoc.org/eccltoday.html
> http://www.orthodox-theology.com/
> 
> Older order Christians endorse rationalism as well, and great intellectuals like Father Pacwa (member of the Jesuits) have practiced Orthodox Apologetics. There are tons of professors with doctorates from the Orthodox groups, not just priests and bishops.


I don't see the relation between my post and your response.


----------



## Lukecash12

science said:


> I don't see the relation between my post and your response.


Orthodox Christians use Apostolic Authority, their hermeneutics, their extra books (called the deuterocanon), and their tradition, to interpret the scriptures the way they do. An older order Christian uses just as much rationalization, and epistemic foundationalism (the axioms of Apostolic Authority and doxological tradition), to make doctrinal statements.

The newest and latest interpretations of the Catholic Church are only it's naming of several Apocryphal books as deuterocanon (just like the Eastern Orthodox), and it's renouncing the practice of penance indulgences (both of these new declarations having been made by the Council of Trent). _The Vatican II statements were nothing but recap and confirmation, especially when it comes to ex cathedra infallibility._ Aside from that, the Catholic Church, and most other Orthodox churches, hold firmly to the OT, the NT, and the Creeds.

Also, you've yet to point out why Evangelical epistemic reasoning happens to be illogical, or un-christian. Epistemics and hermeneutics are classified as practices of thinking logically. Thus, to tell someone that they ought not to think logically of the Bible and Christianity as a whole, is a statement whose inescapable logical consequence is that you are inviting that person to err. Something that we have faith in, and something that is heavily evident to us, can be complementary. Consider people like Aquinas, whose faith must have made up for a lot of uncertainties. Christians do not have Cartesian proof, no straight Boolean logic proposition that equates to every doctrinal belief of Christians being true.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> Orthodox Christians use Apostolic Authority, their hermeneutics, their extra books (called the deuterocanon), and their tradition, to interpret the scriptures the way they do. An older order Christian uses just as much rationalization, and epistemic foundationalism (the axioms of Apostolic Authority and doxological tradition), to make doctrinal statements.
> 
> The newest and latest interpretations of the Catholic Church are only it's naming of several Apocryphal books as deuterocanon (just like the Eastern Orthodox), and it's renouncing the practice of penance indulgences (both of these new declarations having been made by the Council of Trent). _The Vatican II statements were nothing but recap and confirmation, especially when it comes to ex cathedra infallibility._ Aside from that, the Catholic Church, and most other Orthodox churches, hold firmly to the OT, the NT, and the Creeds.
> 
> Also, you've yet to point out why Evangelical epistemic reasoning happens to be illogical, or un-christian. Epistemics and hermeneutics are classified as practices of thinking logically. Thus, to tell someone that they ought not to think logically of the Bible and Christianity as a whole, is a statement whose inescapable logical consequence is that you are inviting that person to err. Something that we have faith in, and something that is heavily evident to us, can be complementary. Consider people like Aquinas, whose faith must have made up for a lot of uncertainties. Christians do not have Cartesian proof, no straight Boolean logic proposition that equates to every doctrinal belief of Christians being true.


You're mixing up "logic" and "foundationalism" unnecessarily. I didn't say or imply that Christians shouldn't use logic.

Also, you're mixing up Catholic and Orthodox in a really confusing and unhelpful way. It is interesting and maybe even relevant to note that some conservative Catholics also have a foundationalist epistemology, using Papal authority as their foundation. But Trent and Vatican II and so on has nothing to do with Orthodoxy.

The Orthodox have nothing comparable. Not Apostolic succession, because the fact is that all of the Patriarchies have at some point been occupied by a heretic. Not just councils, for councils refute each other on various points, and so on. And then even the statements of the Ecumenical Councils, such as the creeds, have to be interpreted in the same way that the Bible has to. There is no secular method of doing all of this. You can say that God is the foundation, and that's true enough, but there is no secular way of figuring out what God's opinion is. That is why the Orthodox say that theology is prayer.

Evangelical Christians are not supposed to believe anything that they cannot derive from a "literal" reading of the Bible. If you can't derive it by simple logic from Biblical axioms, you are not supposed to believe it. The only thing that receives acceptance by faith is the Bible (and the Canon) itself.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

This thread purported to seek answers to moral questions from an Atheistic perspective. For a while, we even were working in that direction. I think that even some Theists asserted that there were some answers to this situation that did not compromise the Atheistic mind-set.

(And, speaking personally, I for one believe that we improve the function of Civil Society if people of ALL philosophical perspectives proceed with some unifying morals, even if they disagree about their ultimate source.)

Unfortunately, this thread has journeyed far afield from its original intention. It will journey *no further*, for the topic will be closed if it does.

(Last warning)


----------



## Lukecash12

I'll just PM him. Don't worry about it, good sir.


----------



## Guest

My two cents - there are three different kinds of reality - there is an objective universe, there is our subjective experience of same, and there is a concept space of thought where we try to assemble a conceptual model of reality, our place in it, how we should live, etc. 

All of the above discussion is firmly in the third category - a discussion of how to arrange our mental furniture to best mirror the essence of the world we live in. Nothing you can think or say changes either (1) physical reality, governed by the laws of physics, etc; or (2) existential reality - your unique experience of life (and here I'm giving all you potential automatons the benefit of the doubt ).

So many of these arguments are pointless because the commentor assumes the absolute reality of concepts like God or good, when really they are ontologically no different from dog and dig - just conceptual memes.

To address the initial query, how can we have morality without religion. Well, I would point out that our sense of morality pre-dates religion and precedes our exposure to religion. Monkeys and babies have an innate sense of fairness. How is this possible? Through the magic of evolution - the same way a newborn gazelle, fresh from plopping down on the plains will stand up on wobbly legs and, when a lion appears, will not only run away but will even bob and weave to try to escape - all just minutes away from birth. 

I would also point out that morality, at its core, is a very very simple concept. I can find very little to add to the concept of morality beyond the golden rule.

Thanks for reading.


----------



## Vaneyes

I haven't read the OP's comments or any others. I do think the people that install the Nothing Matters philosophy have essentially given up. They have become so overwhelmed by the demands of daily living, that the rant "I'm not going to take this anymore" seems like the best solution. Of course, unless one chooses to live off the land in some remote location, there isn't much chance of this philosophy truely taking hold, is there? Harmless effect, usually.


----------



## Philip

Ravellian said:


> I'm in one of my philosophical moods today, bear with me...
> 
> I am a declared atheist and I always will be, since it seems obvious to me that it is simply not rational to adhere to any religion. However, atheism creates a problem. Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem. We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:
> 
> 1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.
> 
> Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*
> 
> My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?









Philip said:


> well then not god but society will punish or reject you if your behaviour is inappropriate or morally questionable... i don't see the problem


in this case, the society is china and the inappropriate behaviour is not minding your own business. how's that for a demonstration of society dictating the norm?


----------



## Almaviva

^This is one of the most shocking and troubling videos I've ever seen. I'll have trouble sleeping tonight.
I wonder if someone who knows Chinese can tell us what the man was saying during the second half of the video.


----------



## Polednice

I feel sick after watching that. Seeing such things completely throw my perspective on life - how can I sit here listening to Mendelssohn and messing about with an English degree when things like that are happening all the time? I am too unfairly privileged.


----------



## Elgarian

BPS said:


> MMonkeys and babies have an innate sense of fairness. How is this possible? Through the magic of evolution - the same way a newborn gazelle, fresh from plopping down on the plains will stand up on wobbly legs and, when a lion appears, will not only run away but will even bob and weave to try to escape - all just minutes away from birth.


Now that you've explained to me that my sense of fairness isn't really a sense of fairness at all (as we normally understand the concept), but just 'something I do' - like running away or standing still, or preferring stilton to cheddar - why should I pay it any attention, if it doesn't happen to suit me? If I know you've lost your wallet, and I subsequently find it, and the little internal voice tells me that it wouldn't be fair for me to keep it ... well, now I know better than to listen to it. Don't I? Once you succeed in persuading me that morality is the result of natural selection, or conditioning, or even mere preference, it's no use appealing to my sense of 'fairness' when I decide _not_ to be 'fair'.


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## science

That video doesn't make me feel unfairly privileged. That was a glimpse right at the true heart of humanity right there, and most of the time we just lie to ourselves. We probably can't help it, it is probably impossible for us to know how evil we are; and even if we could or do know, it's another thing to admit it. 

That's why I pray that a just God exists. There needs to be a hell. 

If only there were a hell.


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## Elgarian

Polednice said:


> how can I sit here listening to Mendelssohn and messing about with an English degree when things like that are happening all the time?


It's a terrible thing to see. The pain of watching it is sickening. It makes the day seem dark. I suppose we can multiply it by thousands, to get the number of similar incidents every day that we _don't _see. The one thing we share, and thank goodness we do (for without it, there's no hope), is the outrage; the dismay; the internal resolution that we'll make sure that we'll never be a party to such callous atrocity.


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## Elgarian

science said:


> That was a glimpse right at the true heart of humanity right there.


No it wasn't. Not _your_ heart. Not mine. Not Polednice's. Not Almaviva's. 
What you see in that video is the _absence_ of heart. The dehumanising of humanity.


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## Couchie

science said:


> That video doesn't make me feel unfairly privileged. That was a glimpse right at the true heart of humanity right there, and most of the time we just lie to ourselves. We probably can't help it, it is probably impossible for us to know how evil we are; and even if we could or do know, it's another thing to admit it.
> 
> That's why I pray that a just God exists. There needs to be a hell.
> 
> If only there were a hell.


Isn't it interesting how when a baby survives a trial the religious are quick to claim a miracle from god, when the above occurs, the silence is deafening.

Just as those bystanders looked on at the suffering baby and did nothing when they had the power to do so, such does god do, every day after witnessing every injustice. So if there is a hell, the first person god needs to send there is himself.


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## Chris

Couchie said:


> Isn't it interesting how when a baby survives a trial the religious are quick to claim a miracle from god, when the above occurs, the silence is deafening.
> 
> Just as those bystanders looked on at the suffering baby and did nothing when they had the power to do so, such does god do, every day after witnessing every injustice. So if there is a hell, the first person god needs to send there is himself.


When you talk about a deafening silence I have to ask which direction your ears are trained towards. The Bible has much to say about human suffering, starting with the Fall of humanity described in Genesis chapter 3. The entire book of Job is about human suffering. I will just note from that book that God takes responsibility for everything that happens in all places. Despite Job's troubles coming via disease, catastrophic weather, bandits and satanic malice, his miseries are always spoken of in terms of what God had done to him, with the other agencies relegated to second causes and forgotten after a couple of chapters.

As for God being indifferent to justice, you will not have to search far in the Bible to find that every sin ever committed has been recorded in heaven and that one day the perpetrators will be called to account.


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## Couchie

Chris said:


> When you talk about a deafening silence I have to ask which direction your ears are trained towards. The Bible has much to say about human suffering, starting with the Fall of humanity described in Genesis chapter 3. The entire book of Job is about human suffering. I will just note from that book that God takes responsibility for everything that happens in all places. Despite Job's troubles coming via disease, catastrophic weather, bandits and satanic malice, his miseries are always spoken of in terms of what God had done to him, with the other agencies relegated to second causes and forgotten after a couple of chapters.
> 
> As for God being indifferent to justice, you will not have to search far in the Bible to find that every sin ever committed has been recorded in heaven and that one day the perpetrators will be called to account.


Not only is that system of justice ridiculous (let's replace our police forces with teams of Christians who relate empathetically to victims of crime that the perpetrators will 'get theirs' in the afterlife), but a god who afflicts us with troubles, and then expects us to love him for it, can, again, go straight to hell.


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## Guest

Couchie said:


> Isn't it interesting how when a baby survives a trial the religious are quick to claim a miracle from god, when the above occurs, the silence is deafening.
> 
> Just as those bystanders looked on at the suffering baby and did nothing when they had the power to do so, such does god do, every day after witnessing every injustice. So if there is a hell, the first person god needs to send there is himself.


Nice straw man, there. Did you turn on your webcam that is focused on the "religious" and watch all of their reactions to that video? Or do you surveil Christians following any catastrophe?

I'm not going to debate with you the whole question of why do bad things happen.


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## Couchie

DrMike said:


> Nice straw man, there. Did you turn on your webcam that is focused on the "religious" and watch all of their reactions to that video? Or do you surveil Christians following any catastrophe?
> 
> I'm not going to debate with you the whole question of why do bad things happen.


I sat in a Christian congregation weekly for over a decade, during which members had both medical triumphs and failures. The triumphs were always miraculous acts of god. The failures were "god works in mysterious ways". The whole thing is a terrible joke.


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## jdavid

Atheist, Agnostic, Believer...any stance is a leap of faith. And on the 'nothing really matters' dilemma, I have experienced that feeling on drugs, but found my way back from a nihilistic void by actually choosing some music to calm my torched nerves - I guess I would say that things matter because I say they matter. I mean I chose a gentle orchestration of Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnnosiennes (sp) and did not choose the Bartok 5th String Quartet... _e voila_...the world became beautiful, again...so, I think that is a pretty good illustration that _it_ mattered in that case - but I may have missed your point altogether 



Ravellian said:


> I'm in one of my philosophical moods today, bear with me...
> 
> I am a declared atheist and I always will be, since it seems obvious to me that it is simply not rational to adhere to any religion. However, atheism creates a problem. Namely, there is no absolute incentive to behave in a certain way. I call this the "nothing really matters" problem. We don't believe in an afterlife, so we have no real inherent obligation to behave in a way corresponding to conventional morality. In other words, we could use this as an excuse every time we might desire to do something morally questionable:
> 
> 1. I want to do morally questionable action x.
> 2. In the long run, we all die and nothing we do here on Earth has ultimate consequence.
> 3. Therefore, I will do x and not feel guilty.
> 
> Now, we may behave in a certain way anyway, in order to try to be happy and normal. We can get a decent job, get married, obey laws, stay faithful to wife and job, be a good parent, etc., and go on until we die. But for an atheist, I do not feel that we are _inherently_ obligated to do these things. *And this creates a conflict, because at any time we can make a (correct) rationalization to ourselves to do something that is not morally acceptable.*
> 
> My fellow atheists, do you find this troubling? Or liberating, perhaps?


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