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
Glad to hear it!
Note;
Three of the most violent countries have been the most decisively atheistic ones; nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and China.
Only Spain has been more violent, in its destruction of the South American peoples.
I would argue that we can not conclude much about a country’s or persons ethics by whether they are religious or not. I think that what guarantees violence is a starkly top-down system, religious, or not.
We see the same in smaller human societies such as families; pyramids of abuse. The top dog abuses the one below him or her, s/he abuses the one below, and so forth. There often is a deliberate architecture in this, driven by compulsions of instinct but designed with shrewd cunning.
Germany was mostly a Christian nation and Hitler used the Vatican bank to do some of his dirty deeds and also used priests, Jesuits if I recall, to help rid the Eastern countries of Jews in some of the concentration camps. The S.S. and soldiers also wore belts with, In God We Trust on them.
China. I can’t remember when Moe cracked down on Confucianism but it has never died. Right now they are allowing some Christianity, but are, intelligently, cracking down on Islam.
The U.S is touting itself as the most Christian country yet has the world record for jailing it’s people and abortion.
I will continue to try to kill Christianity and Islam. They are both garbage religions.
One would expect nothing less given that they have a genocidal god that they call good.
Regards
DL
Regarding religions, you really have to just throw out the fluff and see them for what they are. Psycho-social programs with specific purposes.
Confucianism is a program for social stability. Inward facing. Christianity and Islam are battle programs meant to coercively unify the in-group, demonize the out-group, reduce fear of death, and to justify and legitimize pre-emptive strikes. Outward-facing. They co-evolve with already violence-prone animal-herder societies living under conditions of general hardship and perpetual conflict.
Comparisons between the two are largely aesthetic in my eyes at least, like saying pink hammers are better than blue hammers, when the real questions are a) how well do they drive nails, and b) do we really need a hammer at all right now…?
And it’s not that gods and religions are genocidal per-se, but that logically, wars between ethnicities are always genocidal when taken to their natural end-points.
Well put.
The religions had some value in the past, but these days, with secularism being the direction we are going in, their usefulness as tribes is no longer required and the intelligent will see that they are in fact slowing down our social moral progress.
Homophobia ands misogyny being the worst offences.
Regards
DL
I think there is an order of rank when it comes to religions. Man will permit man to get on his knees as he pleases. But those who force others to get on their knees - well… I better not speak my thoughts.
At the peak of the pyramid of human consciousness, humans are free to their own soul.
Most humans have no knowledge of their soul. And so they have no choice but to obey to a particular Chesedic sphere. It makes zero difference if there is a God-notion involved.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdnMEShz5N0[/youtube]
I think the process of value giving may be exclusive to humans because value is a concept and only we can think in such abstract terms at a profound level
I think it is not us always designing ourselves as value systems but finding the one that works for us and then morally improving from it as much as possible
To love is to give value to, no?
And to have taste for a food is to value the food.
And we breathe because oxygen is an indispensable value to us.
Much before conceptual consciousness was reached, nature was valuing.