Researchers Discover 'Anxiety Cells' In The Brain

The above is one good example which is more serious and not petty.

Re my points, I have done the necessary research and various statistics within my means.
As for the other knowledge and principles I have read and researched on them extensively.

Note one of the most common knowledge and principle is the ‘Us versus Them’ ‘In-group versus Out-group’ concept. This concept has been researched very widely.
Note
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups
and note

Out-group [THEM] derogation and condemnation is so common, thus I am surprised how you did not understand this point in terms of Islam [also Christianity and Judaism] condemning other religions and non-believers which is reflected very glaringly in the Quran.

Btw, I stated theism emerged from some kind of mental problem/illness [non DSMV] arising from an existential crisis. I have also stated ALL humans has this potential, therefore there are some non-theists who are also suffering from such mental problem/illness [non DSMV].

The principle of effective problem-solving is one must make an attempt to quantify all know variables.

Your problem is you are too impulsive and thus quick to reject what I am proposing.

Evilness [re evil acts] is a very significant problem within humanity.
Thus to resolve evilness effectively we need to quantify ‘evilness’.
Surely you can agree there are degrees of evilness for all the known evil acts.

Note this common view;

To differentiate the degrees,
Let say, IF genocides, mass killing, mass rapes is 90% degree of evilness.
then how would you rate the above 25 and other ‘everyday evil’.
Common rationality will determine these everyday evil acts could be rated at 1-10%.
Then we will have other evils acts of various degrees in between the above two extremes.
Agree?

It is not I have made up the above %.
Using basic thinking anyone can generate the above % as defined.

Now [assume the problem raised can be resolved] if one is faced with the two extremes and has limited resources it would be more efficient to focus one’s resources on those evilness that are rated at 90%.

So you are wrong when you insist;
“They are meaningless. Therefore, any inferences based on those percentages are meaningless.”

Homeostasis is what you claim anxiety cells are trying to achieve when faced with religious remedies for existential angst. You have already crossed the physical/mental divide; so it will not do now to claim that the brain’s activities are purely physical. Homeostasis has a broader definition than you gave; otherwise your entire scenario of cells, anxiety and religion falls apart. This is why I can’t always tell whether you are attempting to describe something physical or something mental.

Then you should have no difficulty presenting evidence which supports your claim. But I don’t see you doing it.

So?

That ‘principle’ has also been shown to break down and the groups merge.

I understand that various religious groups sometimes get along and sometimes they don’t. And within the groups there are always moderates and extremists.

And if I’m going to be making a general claim about theists, then it can’t be based on the extremists of one particular religious group.

You state that but I don’t believe it. Mental illness is basically the inability to function effectively.Theism doesn’t get in the way of effectiveness and it probably enhances it. (But that’s a subject for another philosophical discussion.)
Furthermore, if God exists then theism is a correct world view and not merely a convenient invention. Then one needs to determine which god exists from the candidates on the list.

My problem is that I understand the use and abuse of numbers.

One does not quantify things which are unquantifiable.

To a large degree, normal people will agree on a ranking but not on actual quantities. IOW, they think that Act A is more evil/bad than Act B but not that Act A is “95% evil”.

Every time that you write “let’s say”, you are asking me to agree to your number … but I don’t agree. You pulled the number out of your dreams, imagination, prejudices, etc.

Sure, any person can generate any percentage that he/she feels like. That’s why it’s useless.

My understanding of homeostasis has always been the physical.
As for homeostasis in relation to anxiety, I just went along with your view in an analogical sense of balancing something to some expectations and I did make a lot of qualification on the use of the term in relation to religions.

Re anxiety and religion, the motive of anxiety in this particular case is more towards maintaining consonance from dissonance.

Note I mentioned ‘within my means.’ I have already provided statistics and references.

The “Us versus Them” is centered on divisiveness to facilitate survival and its negativeness.
So?
So that is why many [not all] theists are so offensive when they feel their psychological security re theism is threatened.

It is not about theists [some evil, majority good] but theism as a fundamental ideology.

The ideology of theism has its pros and cons.
But the negative consequences of the ideology of theism re 'Us versus Them" generate terrible evils and violence, e.g. the stats below;

and in addition to a whole loads of other evil acts and violence.

Your view of focusing on the majority and not the proximate root causes is very irresponsible and giving attention to a misplaced priority.

Since the emergence of the idea of God, theists has not been able to prove God exists as real convincingly. Meanwhile there are so many arguments against the existence of God, e.g. God is an Impossibility and other counter views against the idea of God.

Everyone is entitled to think what they want and there is no concern if what is thought has no terrible negative impact on humanity.
But when thoughts are established as an ideology, in this case, theism, and has a VERY significant negative impact on humanity and is a serious threat to humanity in the future [possible extermination of the human species - re Islam] then serious attention must be given to such an ideology taking into accounts its pros versus cons.

At present [data accumulated from the pasts], below is one critical and terrible evil consequence arising from the ideology of theism,


plus a whole loads of other evil acts and violence.

My problem is that I understand the use and abuse of numbers.
[/quote]
As I said that is due to your impulsiveness in being defensive and for defensive sake.

God is unquantifiable because it is an impossibility.
Other than the impossibilities all empirical possibilities are quantifiable but what is critical is the contexts and criteria must be precisely defined. When these numbers are used, one must always qualify the contexts and criteria used.
Note a subjective piece of art work can be quantified, i.e. in terms of the price $$ people are willing to pay for it.
Beauty is quantified in a beauty pageant and the winners are rewarded and recognized which has effects on people actions.

Yes, generally people will “think that Act A is more evil/bad than Act B.”

But note a person of higher IQ and wisdom will strive to find ways via quantification of the variable to prevent, reduce or eliminate the evils concern.

I don’t simply pull % out of nowhere, there is a rationale to why we can rate genocides, mass killing, mass rapes at 90%.

Note;

  1. The point here is there are no greater known evils than genocides, mass killing, mass rapes and the likes. This is common knowledge. So I rate them at 90% conservatively.
  2. We also know there are common everyday petty ‘evils’ note the view and reference I posted above which is the other extreme.
  3. We also know there is a medium range of evil acts between the everyday petty evils and the extreme evil.

What I am trying to aim for is an approximate relative comparison with figures to represent the continuum of evilness.
Now IF I rate the extreme evilness in 1 at 90%
then I will have to rate 2 much lower than 90%.
I am aware there is a medium range of evil acts, thus if I rate the lowest at 10%, then the medium range of evil acts will be something like 50%.

I have done extensive research on evilness and evil act. I have also prepared a taxonomy of evilness and evil acts. In this case I can represent all the evil acts in % i.e.

High to average = 90% to 50%
Average to low = 50% to 10%.

The starting point of this we prepare a rough taxonomy and ratings which can be improved over time.

Application;
If you are the person given the responsible to prevent, reduce or eliminate evil acts in your country but for good reasons has limited resources.
In general [not special situations] the chart of % of evil acts and evilness will facilitate to direct your limited resources to the critical areas.

If you don’t have figures to guide you then you will be using your intuition and that is likely to face communication problems throughout, go haywire with a fire fighting approach.

“Anxiety” cells are purely physical. What exactly it is that they react to is highly speculative, especially if it is said that they react to certain types of mental content. Whether it is religion or something else that causes them to react is unknown. One has to be very careful in assigning to the brain what it is supposed to be doing or why certain ideas arise as they do. This is certainly a more complex situation than your thesis allows.

Where? Statistics about the issues I specifically wrote about?

Then stop writing about theists and start writing about theism. But you keep writing stuff like this :

And you specifically stated that the theists in this thread feel threatened.

Those arguments against the existence of God were not convincing.

You haven’t shown that theism is a net negative. I personally tend to think that it’s a net positive. But it’s probably impossible to come to a clear conclusion due to the complexity, subjective value judgements and interpretations of the argument.

Please stop these amateur analyses. There is no place for them in a philosophy discussion.

If it’s only an “empirical possibility” (whatever that means) then it’s not actually empirically real and so there is no existing data. I don’t care about “possible data”.

Even real existing stuff is often not quantifiable because of technical and practical limitations.

Yes, subjective - dependent on persons involved, time, place, etc.

Maybe a person of higher IQ and wisdom will realize that evil is not quantifiable.

This is nothing more than a rationalization of your errors.

Phyllo is right Pris, on all counts. Scales of measurement for qualitative properties, such as differing degrees of evil are made in accordance with the perspective of the person measuring them. Which obviously means that they are subjective measurements. You can’t expect us to treat your subjective measurements as objective facts or a substantive guide for quantifying degrees of evil - something that is very problematic to quantify or possibly cannot even be quantified. I think the best that you can achieve here is a consensus; and whilst many people may agree that there are evil acts that are more evil than others, assigning percentages to those opinions not only has the potential to create huge differences in variables (consider people’s differences in opinion due to culture, religion, social status, etc), but also seems very arbitrary. It is fundamentally guess work, which also encounters a huge potential for confirmation bias.

Back to the drawing board buddy… :slight_smile:

Where relevant.
Note this as a starting point to support my point where relevant;

I stated my main focus is the ideology of theism but that would be ridiculous if I totally avoid theists who adopt the theistic ideology.
Note this thread where I differentiate theistic ideology from theists.
Do NOT Bash Muslims

To me it is convincing.
Note my syllogism has only a few main terms, i.e. absolute perfection, empirical-rational reality.
I am still waiting for convincing counter arguments to show why my syllogism is not sound at all.

I have been admitting theism at present is a critical necessity for the majority and is in a net-positive position, but the trend is the cons are outweighing the pros of theism-as-a-whole.

I have shown the potential and trend of theism toward being net-negative in the near future. Note this again and is trend since 911…

What is very unfortunate is you deliberately avoid to understand the malignant ethos inherent in Islam. You need to research on Islam and Quran to do that.

This is a fact. I have provided the above statistics but that do not stir you to think of its evil potential in the future and to find its proximate root causes.

You missed my point.
All empirical possibilities covered whatever will happen in the future [the next second to the infinite] has to empirically possible based on known empirical evidence. For example, it is useless to attempt to quantify how many ‘square-circle’ in the next second or later future.

The point is we may not be able to measure them objectively, we can put approximate numbers to them.

Yes, subjective, the main point is there is quantification and they work.
People in these cases did not give up rating who is more beautiful in terms of numbers because they think beauty is subjective.

It is only a person of low intelligence who think evil or anything subjective [empirical-based] cannot be quantifiable.
Note quantification of evil is actually implied in the judiciary system where evilness is in correlation with the degree of penal charges sentenced on the guilty, e.g. the rating of first, second or third degree murder.
So think harder and wider, don’t let your intelligence neurons atrophize due to non-usage.

I believe I have presented something very serious but you just brush it off.

Note if the variable is love, beauty and happiness I believe it would be more difficult but still possible to quantify.
In the case of ‘evil’ we can determine the worst of the worst existing evil acts at present, e.g. genocides, mass rapes, mass killing with torture and the likes.
We can also assess the petty everyday evil.
As I had stated such evils are already quantified implicitly within the judiciary system.
So it is not a problem to put numbers on what is already done at present.

You are just agreeing without any serious thinking.

Note my explanation on why ‘evilness’ is a special qualitative property. I stated above;

Note if the variable is love, beauty and happiness I believe it would be more difficult but still possible to quantify.
In the case of ‘evil’ we can determine the worst of the worst existing evil acts at present, e.g. genocides, mass rapes, mass killing with torture and the likes.
We can also assess the petty everyday evils.
As I had stated such evils are already quantified implicitly within the judiciary system.
So it is not a problem to put numbers on what is already done at present.

It is not done but anyone with average intelligence can study all courts sentencing and judgments and come up with some rough comparative percentages, e.g.

to rate the worst possible know evil acts like genocides, mass murders with torture, mass rapes, etc at say 90% and everyday petty evils at 10%. Note the numbers are not the most critical rather it is the reasonable accurate comparative ratings that is critical.

Another critical factor is humans has limited resources so they need to apply limited resources to what is more critical, efficient and optimal. Thus where resources are critical the priority is we direct the resources to the issues of more critical consequences.

By the way, are you aware of how to use the Pareto 80/20 ratio. Point here is to identify where we can use 20% effort to resolve 80% of the problem rather than wasting 80% of resources to resolve only 20% of the problem.

Note my forte is problem-solving techniques.
The problem with yours, phyllo’s views [and many others] is there is a lack of sophistication and refinement in addressing problems. When I introduce refinements the immediate reaction is natural instinctual defensiveness. Come on, this is philosophical forum [where refine thinking is a must] not a fish market.

Note I have already provided references that link anxiety with religions.
If you are not convinced you can do further research on that.

If you research on all religions you will note there is a strong link between the death anxiety - existential angst and the doctrines [philosophy] of the religions.

Note I presented this argument earlier [now including some of your points];

everybody experiences existential angst. It’s DNA ordained. (2)

  1. DNA wise, anxiety cells [existential related] drive humans to invent religions/theism.

  2. Religion assuages anxiety [existential related]
    religion is a type of mental illness -non DSMV (8)

  3. Religion causes atrocities (by SOME evil prone believers in Islam)
    the excesses practiced by a minority of Islamic terrorists indicates what religion now is and what its future offers mankind (7)

  4. Anxiety cells discovered in the brain by scientists

  5. Anxiety cells [existential related] are identified
    anxiety cells can be modulated (9)

  6. Anxiety cells [existential related] identified are modulated [future only]

  7. Anxiety driving one to be religious (1) is reduced and/or eliminated - no more religious.

  8. Replaced - religions waned and/or disappeared in the future

From the above, one critical element that stand out is ‘anxiety’.
This anxiety is specifically related to the existential crisis.
Then there is the Human Connectome Project [HCP] - this is critical, so that
in the future we can target to modulate the specific neurons related to the existential crisis.
Note I am not saying it is going to easy but there is hope from the HCP.
Once we can modulate the linkage we can reduce or eliminate religiosity and replace it with the right spirituality.
In the future, without religion, there will be NO more religious based evils and violence like the below;


and the whole range of other evil and violent acts via religions.

Pris:

I think that doing so encounters problems, which I’ve already stated.

It is not done for a reason. I think that some of the reasons may be that it is arbitrary, speculative and imprecise. What if I disagree wholly with your given percentages? How would you reconcile differences in opinion? Who decides what the right percentages are?

This is clearly a faulty analysis. You assume that because you’re disagreed with, the interlocutors lack “sophistication and refinement in addressing problems”, without considering the real possibility that your arguments are flawed. Your “psychoanalysis” is also faulty, I’m not being defensive (and I don’t think others are either), I’m disagreeing with you because I think that your wrong. Note, if you’re going to submit arguments on a philosophy forum, you should expect to be challenged. Psychoanalysing people because they disagree with you, is ridiculous.

Welcome to hell, Fanman!

He would say you’re wrong, eternally.

There is only one opinion :evilfun:

The absolutist.

Therein lies the problem: the absolutist cannot be flawed. There is a good and evil because He defines them so and He defines the percentages and He finds unflawed perfection in the analysis because “I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” How can one argue with that? :confusion-shrug:

This is what you’re accomplishing: :angry-banghead:

Yes but one can’t be defeated unless he admits it, so just never admit defeat and one can be invincible! We’re all invincible here, just like there are no guilty men in prison :wink:

Yes but you see your problem is you expect too much :smiley:

I sincerely welcome you and hope you stick around in spite of… everything.

Thanks serendipper (and Ierrellus) for your welcomes. I’ve been on the Online Philosophy Club for years, so I’m used to the territory :slight_smile: . I know Prismatic as Spectrum, it was he who actually linked me to this site via one of his responses on his “God is an impossibility” thread (yes, there is one there too, with no valid counter arguments… :angry-banghead: ) and I found this site to be very good.

In view of neuroscience, Prism’s thesis and its varying "proof’s’ just don’t smell right; neither do his “logical” connections of speculative claims. It may take someone smarter than I to find exactly what is wrong with this thread. But, as Walter Kaufmann noted, “One can smell a rotten egg without being able to lay a fresh one.”

In that case maybe you can give me some pointers :smiley:

No counter arguments??? That’s impossible :wink:

I’ll have to write that down. Thanks!

Ierrellus:

I’m not smarter than you, but I think that one of the problems Pris’ arguments encounter (I think there may be a few) is confirmation bias; because he only sources “evidence” that supports his arguments. He makes scientific/psychological/philosophical claims (blending the three) and does not bother to attempt to falsify them, which he should do as he’s quite serious about his claims, and considers some of them (or maybe all of them) to be facts.

Rather, he automatically assumes that he’s right, because what evidence he has sourced, seems correlate with what he argues or claims, whilst he’s well aware that correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation. I don’t want to hammer the guy, but if you read his “God is an impossibility” thread the flaws in his argumentation are highlighted by other users, at the risk of sounding harsh or being wrong, the flaws in his arguments seem generic.

He’s skilled and naturally gifted at finding novel ways around the problem of admitting defeat. Why smart people defend bad ideas.

That he is, I suppose that practice makes perfect, or is that absolutely perfect? :laughing: No, wait. Absolute perfection cannot exist so I guess I mean just plain old perfect… Wait, perfection can exist and describes an absolute state, making the term “absolute perfection” redundant (unless used for emphasis) therefore Pris is perfect at finding novel ways around the problem of admitting defeat absolutely? This is all too confusing :doh:

No true Scotsman is coming next :sunglasses: .