I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

True.

We, if intelligent, initially recognize our best thinking on any issue and then determine, by hopefully judging ourselves and who we trust the most and adopt his expertise and make it our view.

In cases of religious morals in choosing a religion, that judgement is mostly subjective.

Regards
DL

It indeed does apply to Gnostic Christians, in, to me, the best way.

We accept and apply/embrace whatever it is, but as perpetual seekers of better ways, we mentally raise our bar of excellence and seek any.

That way we always keep an open mind and do not end in the idol worship of any idea or character like god. We, unlike the mainstream, are this free to reject their rather vile genocidal god.

Regards
DL

The two are different ethical systems. Different value sets.

You missed the point of her bravery. The supernatural stuff is entirely beside the point.

The point is the ethics she wishes to live by. These ethics are what seemed more logical.
Ethics include aesthetics.

Your ethics, Tab, are remnants of Christian ethics. Invented by a sect of radically brave Jews. Eroded values, like all atheist values, confused, not definitive.

No atheist was ever not confused.
This is not a judgment of their character.
Nor are they to blame for finding organized religions and their texts, stupid.

It is not an easy matter.

“Ancestral Gods - the thing is not how well you know them, its how well they know you”.

Not an atheist fixed, just think the question of there is/there isn’t doesn’t merit thought. My values are realistic, and by that I mean red in tooth and claw. My ethics are like anyone elses, social niceties, and like anyone elses’, including yours, run only as deep as gnat’s ass.

The question isn’t one of thought, I agree.

I dont see realism in your idea that this girl missed any points.

And I don’t think realism is included in “tooth and claw” alone. Though it certainly isn’t possible without tooth and claw.

Still. Your response brightens my image of you which I got from the post I responded to.
(and I don’t expect youd be so sad as to care either way)

There’s good reason Egyptians revered cats.

A cat includes tooth and claw, but is not defined by them. It masters them.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQub7Lk_9Q[/youtube]

In as far as there is an authority and judge of me, I defer to that judge and authority regarding definition of itself.
I don’t care to judge myself. I already am myself. Id be a bit on the partial side and this kind of makes moot of judgment.

I take as much responsibility for myself as is humanly possible.

But I don’t imagine “I” am all there is to me.

Eh, I just think people in general spend far too much time trying to convince themselves they are ‘ethical’. When the truth is most of time any morality or system of ethics they may have assumed they subscribe or hold to has never been put to the test.

I’m an animal, so are you, of course we are. We may aspire to be more, which perhaps is noble, but ultimately delusionary.

Some humans are actually quite ethical. Most of them aren’t. It is, in any case, extremely tough to accomplish.

Cats, on the other hand, have great ethics. Like so many animals. So don’t flatter yourself. Or me.

“Humans have yet to become animal.” - Striking Thunder

Thanks all.

Seems that many no longer strive to be the fittest.

Not too surprising given the likely age group.

Regards
DL

I don’t feel it though, DL… I often feel that my methodology grates with that of others, but I’m working on that aspect… in not getting deterred.

Now I think I know what the bible alluded to, about being born with original sin, but it sure ain’t all of us as I’ve always taken umbrage to that… better to follow a non-religious individual-creating guidance than a religious dogma that breeds negativity into its adherents, but there’s no money in that… is there?

The planet could indeed be brought up to a better level, but are populations up to the job?

Humans tend to be lazy until backed up to a wall. We are poor at planning ahead and we might have to wait till we are fighting all over the place with a bunch of displaced starving people. When the poor start to kill the well off, that is when our rich oligarch owners will pay to have the political will generated by their political lackeys.

That or the children, who are getting brighter over time, rebel against their uncaring or just plan lazy and stupid parents.

That is when we will elect an environmental Czar with the power to push his weight around, even in China.

This will likely usher in a new global system of governance.

Interesting time are a coming.

We will either collectively live, die or fight a WWIII, and like the last war, no country will go untouched by it.

Regards
DL

Thanks for that.

I assume this was aimed at me, if it was it was just. Not true, but very just in response to my post here and my general behaviour yesterday.

February 4th always makes a kind of weak mush of me. On this day my best friend decided to kill himself in my garden a few feet from my bed and caused my whole family to be completely ruined, fall apart.
The day is always a pure nightmare. And I grow weak. Because all weakness in the world becomes manifest. I stay in a family place and… try to …help. But… it never works. Nothing ever works on that day.

Of course I am my own judge and guide. It is I who value my Gods. For reasons that rest in me.

And of course humans are superior in power to other animals. Its their superior power which makes it so hard to be ethical for them.

Not me, though - I am deeply ethical and Im master of my domain, which is philosophy. No one has come close to my power here. And no one ever will. I am the center of time.

No such thing as atheist values - maybe you mean liberal values - but confusion about the human condition is not something exclusive to non believers
No one possesses a monopoly on wisdom either collectively or individually although many think that their particular belief system and only theirs does

Now while I might not agree with organised religion it is a bit of a non sequitur to simply assume that I must think it is all stupid
The actual truth of the matter is that I try not to dismiss it merely because I disagree with it but prefer to learn about it instead

It was indeed aimed at you and thanks for your thumbs up.

I think that you may not be seeing the forest for the trees though in thinking that most of us do not act in an ethical way.

These two links may give you a different view, given that stats show just how ethical we all are, to a point where evolutionary scientists are hard pressed to explain why we are so nice.

The first is short. The second longer, but the stats I spoke of are given in the last few minutes.

youtube.com/watch?v=_ADgh3yCSdM

youtube.com/watch?v=aLulcfyqrc0

Regards
DL

From my frame of mind, we discuss these things in different ways. And for different reasons.

Any number of folks on one or another religious, spiritual or enlightened path [and their secular equivalents] could note much the same thing. Speaking of “better ways” of doing things and “raising the bar of excellence” in pursuit of them.

But what things? In what set of circumstances. The part where these idealistic “general descriptions” come into conflict out in the world.

Okay, but for all practical purposes what does it mean to keep an open mind when push comes to shove and, in any particular human community, it is necessary to reward or punish particular behaviors given particular contexts.

Here religious folks will either take their God or they won’t. Same with the non-religious folks who are still able to make that distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral behavior.

And I’m only here because I am no longer able to do this myself. So, I explain why and note the reactions.

Greatest, I was regressing, and again thats for the prod.
Dawkins makes valid points of course. It is evolutionarily pretty logical that we aren’t complete brutes, as brutes tend to draw ill will to them.
We are a mix of herd and predator animals.

More specifically though, more deeply, we are, as all nature is, nothing more or less than a process of value-giving. Meaning, we are always in the process of designing ourselves as value systems, and ethics is the layer of consciousness in which we recognize this being.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qzHx678Ro0[/youtube]

I rest my case.

The non-religious seem quite good at devising, better than theistic laws, as most of the moral tenets they follow are showing to be making more peaceful and law abiding people in countries where there is less religion.

Don’t go by reactions in this kind of place as too many are a holes with nothing better to do than bully.

Regards
DL

I can agree with this even without watching that vid.

I will have a look though and reply if I have anything negative on it.

Regards
DL